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WORKS   BY   HENRY  JAMES. 


THE  SECRET  OF  SWEDENBORG,  being  an  Eluci- 
dation of  his  Doctrine  of  the  Divine-Natural  Humanity. 
Boston:  Houghton,  Mifflin,  &  Co.,  1869.     Price  $2.50. 

SOCIETY  THE  REDEEMED  FORM  OF  MAN 
AND  EARNEST  OF  GOD'S  OMNIPOTENCE 
IN  HUMAN  NATURE,  affirmed  in  Letters  to  a 
Friend.  Boston :  Houghton,  Mifflin,  &  Co.,  1879 
Price  $2.00. 


H.B.M9Lalliin   Si 


THE 


LITERARY    REMAINS 


OF   THE   LATE 


HENRY  JAMES 

lEtjftEtf  fet'tfj  an  intr0tiuctt0n 
By    WILLIAM    JAMES 


BOSTON  AND  NEW  YORK 

HOUGHTON  MIFFLIN  COMPANY 

0)t  Ribet^ilie  ptejiji  Cambtibse 


Copyright,  1884, 
By  William  James. 


All  rights  reserved. 


B 
JXL7 


CONTENTS. 


PAGE 

Introduction 7 

Immortal  Life:  an  Autobiographic  Sketch  .    .    .    .  121 

Preface 123 

Autobiography 145 

Chap.  I.     My  earliest  Recollections 145 

II.     Conflict  between  my  Moral  and  my  Spiritual 

Life 158 

III.    Same  General  Subject 178 

Spiritual  Creation 193 

Chap.  I.    The  Indigestible  Newspaper 195 

II.     Our  Sentiment  of  Otherness  to  God    ....  207 

III.  Otherness  to  God  unscientific 215 

IV.  Error  of  Modern  Pharisaism 221 

V.     Nature  a  Hostile  Element  in  Creation     .    .     .  230 

VI.     Grandeur  of  Creative  Name 239 

VII.     The  Road  we  are  travelling 254 

VIII.     A  Conscience  of  Sin 264 

IX.     The  Office  of  Miracle 275 

X.     Mr.  Emerson .  293 

XL     Swedenborg  and  Science 303 

XII.     Science  in  Relation  to  the  Intellect     ....  329 

XIII.  Adam  and  Eve 346 

XIV.  Swedenborg  and  his  Followers 368 

XV.     Incarnation 3S7 

Some  Personal  Recollections  of  Carlyle 421 

Bibliography 469 


li8S?;27 


INTRODUCTION. 


THE  longer  of  the  works  that  follow  was  left 
by  its  author  almost  finished,  and,  as  far  as 
it  goes,  in  completed  form,  —  the  proofs  having 
been  corrected  and  the  electrotype  plates  made, 
under  his  own  direction,  during  the  last  year  of 
his  life. 

The  autobiographic  fragment  dates  from  an 
earlier  period.  He  had  often  been  urged  by 
members  of  his  family  to  express  his  religious 
philosophy  under  the  form  of  a  personal  evolution 
of  opinion.  But  egotistic  analysis  was  less  to  his 
taste  than  enunciation  of  objective  results;  so  that, 
although  he  sat  down  to  the  autobiographic  task 
a  good  many  times,  it  was  at  long  intervals ;  and 
the  work,  "Society  the  Redeemed  Form  of  Man," 
as  well  as  the  one  now  first  published,  were  both 
written  after  the  Autobiography  was  begun.  The 
Stephen  Dewhurst,  whose  confessions  it  is  sup- 
posed to  be,  is  an  entirely  fictitious  personage. 
The  few  items  of  personal  and  geographic  fact  he 
gives  have  been  rectified  in  foot-notes,  so  as  to  be 


8  INTRODUCTION. 

true  of  Mr.  James  rather  than  of  his  imaginary 
mouthpiece.  The  fragments  were  set  up  in  t}^pe 
as  fast  as  written,  and  the  proofs  preserved  and 
much  revised.  A  good  deal  of  manuscript  has 
been  interpolated.  The  editor  has  used  some 
discretion  in  the  printing  of  this,  some  passages 
being  diffuse.  Probably  no  one  will  read  what  is 
here  printed  without  a  deep  regret  that  the  work 
should  not  have  extended  over  later  years  of  the 
author's  life.  To  atone  for  the  loss,  I  have  tried  to 
weave  into  the  quotations  later  to  be  made  in  this 
Introduction  all  the  autobiographic  passages  and 
references  that  are  found  scattered  through  his 
other  works. 

It  is  judged  best  to  publish,  for  the  present  at 
any  rate,  none  of  the  manuscript  lectures  or  other 
fragments  left  by  Mr.  James.  And  of  his  contribu- 
tions to  periodical  literature,  only  one,  the  article 
on  Carlyle,  sees  the  light  again  in  this  volume. 
Exception  was  made  in  favor  of  that  article,  be- 
cause of  its  exceptional  "  popularity  "  at  the  time 
of  its  original  publication. 

It  has  seemed  to  me  not  only  a  filial  but  a  phi- 
losophic duty,  in  giving  these  posthumous  pages 
to  the  world,  to  prefix  to  them  some  such  account 
of  their  author's  ideas  as  might  awaken,  in  readers 
hitherto    strangers  to   his  writings,    the    desire  to 


INTRODUCTION.  9 

become  acquainted  with  them.  I  wish  a  less  un- 
worthy hand  than  mine  were  there  to  do  the  work. 
As  it  is,  I  must  screen  my  own  inadequacy  under 
the  language  of  the  original,  and  let  my  father 
speak,  as  far  as  possible,  for  himself.  It  would 
indeed  be  foolish  to  seek  to  paraphrase  anything 
once  directly  said  by  him.  The  matter  would  be 
sure  to  suffer;  for,  from  the  very  outset  of  his 
iterary  career,  we  find  him  in  the  effortless  pos- 
session of  that  style  with  which  the  reader  will 
soon  become  acquainted,  and  which,  to  its  great 
dignity  of  cadence  and  full  and  homely  vocabu- 
lary, united  a  sort  of  inward  palpitating  human 
quality,  gracious  and  tender,  precise,  fierce,  scorn- 
ful, humorous  by  turns,  recalling  the  rich  vascular 
temperament  of  the  old  English  masters,  rather 
than  that  of  an  American  of  to-day. 

With  all  the  richness  of  style,  the  ideas  are  sin- 
gularly unvaried  and  few.  Probably  few  authors 
have  so  devoted  their  entire  lives  to  the  monoto- 
nous elaboration  of  one  single  bundle  of  truths. 
Whenever  the  eye  falls  upon  one  of  Mr.  James's 
pages,  —  whether  it  be  a  letter  to  a  newspaper  or 
to  a  friend,  whether  it  be  his  earliest  or  his  latest 
book,  —  we  seem  to  find  him  saying  again  and 
again  the  same  thing;  telling  us  what  the  true 
relation  is  between  mankind  and  its  Creator. 
What  he  had  to  say  on  this  point  was  the  burden 


I  o  INTROD  UCTIO.V. 

of  his  whole  life,  and  its  only  burden.  When  he 
had  said  it  once,  he  was  disgusted  with  the  insuffi- 
ciency of  the  formulation  (he  always  hated  the 
sight  of  his  old  books),  and  set  himself  to  work 
to  say  it  again.  But  he  never  analyzed  his  terms 
or  his  data  beyond  a  certain  point,  and  made  very 
few  fundamentally  new  discriminations;  so  the 
result  of  all  these  successive  re-editings  was  rep- 
etition and  amplification  and  enrichment,  rather 
than  reconstruction.  The  student  of  any  one  of 
his  works  knows,  consequently,  all  that  is  essential 
in  the  rest.  I  must  say,  however,  that  the  later 
formulations  are  philosophically,  if  not  always 
rhetorically,  the  best.  In  "  Society  the  Redeemed 
Form  of  Man,"  which  was  composed  while  the 
lingering  effects  of  an  apoplectic  stroke  had  not 
passed  away,  there  are  passages  unsurpassed  in  any 
former  writing.  And  in  the  work  herewith  pub- 
lished, although  most  of  it  was  written  when  my 
father's  general  mental  powers  were  visibly  altered 
by  a  decay  of  strength  that  ended  with  his  death, 
I  doubt  if  his  earlier  readers  will  discover  any 
signs  of  intellectual  decrepitude.  His  truths  were 
his  life ;  they  were  the  companions  of  his  death- 
bed ;  and  when  all  else  had  ebbed  away,  his  grasp 
of  them  was  still  vigorous  and  sure. 

As  aforesaid,  they  were  truths  theological.    This 
is  anything  but  a  theological  age,  as  we  all  know ; 


INTRODUCTION.  1 1 

and  so  far  as  it  permits  itself  to  be  theological  at 
all,  it  is  growing  more  and  more  to  'distrust  all 
systems  that  aim  at  abstract  metaphysics  in  dogma, 
or  pretend  to  rigor  in  their  terms.  The  conven- 
tional and  traditional  acquiescence  we  find  in  the 
older  dogmatic  formularies  is  confined  to  those 
who  are  intellectually  hardly  vitalized  enough  either 
to  apprehend  or  discuss  a  novel  and  rival  creed ; 
whilst  those  of  us  who  have  intellectual  vitality  are 
either  apt  to  be  full  of  bias  against  theism  in  any 
form,  or  if  we  are  theistic  at  all,  it  is  in  such  a 
tentative  and  supplicating  sort  of  way  that  the 
sight  of  a  robust  and  dogmatizing  theologian  sends 
a  shiver  through  our  bones.  A  man  like  my  fa- 
ther, lighting  on  such  a  time,  is  wholly  out  of  his 
element  and  atmosphere,  and  is  soon  left  stranded 
high  and  dry.  His  effectiveness  as  a  missionary 
is  null ;  and  it  is  wonderful  if  his  voice,  crying  in 
the  wilderness  and  getting  no  echo,  do  not  soon 
die  away  for  sheer  discouragement.  That  my  fa- 
ther should  not  have  been  discouraged,  but  should 
have  remained  serene  and  active  to  the  last,  is  a 
proof  both  of  the  stoutness  of  his  heart  and  of 
the  consolations  of  his  creed.  How  many  un- 
known persons  may  have  received  help  and  sug- 
gestion from  his  writings  it  is  impossible  to  say. 
Of  out-and-out  disciples  he  had  very  few  who  ever 
named   themselves.     Few  as  they  were,  his    cor- 


12  INTRODUCTION. 

■respondence  with  them  was  perhaps  his  principal 
solace  and  recreation. 

I  have  often  tried  to  imagine  what  sort  of  a 
figure  my  father  might  have  made,  had  he  been 
born  in  a  genuinely  theological  age,  with  the  best 
minds  about  him  fermenting  with  the  mystery  of 
the  Divinity,  and  the  air  full  of  definitions  and 
theories  and  counter-theories,  and  strenuous  rea- 
sonings and  contentions,  about  God's  relations  to 
mankind.  Floated  on  such  a  congenial  tide,  fur- 
thered by  sympathetic  comrades,  and  opposed  no 
longer  by  blank  silence  but  by  passionate  and 
definite  resistance,  he  would  infallibly  have  devel- 
oped his  resources  in  many  ways  which,  as  it  was, 
he  never  tried  ;  and  he  would  have  played  a  prom- 
inent, perhaps  a  momentous  and  critical,  part  in 
the  struggles  of  his  time,  for  he  was  a  religious  pro- 
phet and  genius,  if  ever  prophet  and  genius  there 
were.  He  published  an  intensely  positive,  radical, 
and  fresh  conception  of  God,  and  an  intensely 
vital  view  of  our  connection  with  him.  And  noth- 
ing shows  better  the  altogether  lifeless  and  unintel- 
lectual  character  of  the  professional  theism  of  our 
time,  than  the  fact  that  this  view,  this  conception, 
so  vigorously  thrown  down,  should  not  have  stirred 
the  faintest  tremulation  on  its  stagnant  pool. 

The  centre  of  his  whole  view  of  things  is  this 
intense  conception  of  God  as  a  creator.     Grant  it, 


INTR  OD  UC  TION.  1 3 

accept  it  without  criticism,  and  the  rest  follows. 
He  nowhere  attempts  by  metaphysical  or  empirical 
arguments  to  make  the  existence  of  God  plausible  ; 
he  simply  assumes  it  as  something  that  must  be 
confessed.  As  has  been  well  said  in  a  recent  little 
work,i  "  Mr.  James  looks  at  creation  instinctively 
from  the  creative  side ;  and  this  has  a  tendency  to 
put  him  at  a  remove  from  his  readers.  The  usual 
problem  is,  —  given  the  creation,  to  find  the  crea- 
tor. To  Mr.  James  it  is,  —  given  the  creator,  to 
find  the  creation.  God  is ;  of  His  being  there  is 
no  doubt;   but  who  and  what  are  w^?  " 

To  sceptics  of  theism  in  any  possible  form,  this 
fundamental  postulate  may  naturally  prove  a  bar- 
rier. But  it  is  difficult  to  see  why  it  should  be  an 
obstacle  to  professedly  Christian  students.  They 
also  confess  God's  existence ;  and  the  way  in  which 
Mr.  James  took  it  ati  grand  sirieux,  and  the  issues 
he  read  in  it,  ought,  one  would  suppose,  to  speak 
to  them  with  some  accent  of  reality.  Like  any 
early  Jewish  prophet,  like  the  Luther  described  in 
a  recent  work  of  genius,^  he  went  back  so  far  and 
so  deep  as  to  find  the  religious  sentiment  in  its 
purest  and  most  unsophisticated  form.  He  lived 
and  breathed  as   one  who  knew  he  had   not  made 

1  Philosophy  of  Henry  James :  A  Digest.  By  J.  A.  Kellogg. 
New  York,  John  W.  Lovell  Company,  1883. 

2  J.  Milsand :  Luther  at  le  Serf-Arbitre.  Paris,  Fischbacher, 
1884.     Passim. 


1 4  INTRO  D  UC  TION. 

himself,  but  was  the  work  of  a  power  that  let  him 
live  from  one  moment  to  the  next,  and  could  do 
with  him  what  it  pleased.  His  intellect  reacted  on 
his  sense  of  the  presence  of  this  power,  so  as  to 
form  a  system  of  the  most  radical  and  self-consis- 
tent, as  well  as  of  the  most  simple,  kind.  I  will  es- 
say to  give  the  reader  a  preliminary  notion- of  what 
its  main  elements  and  outlines  were,  and  then  try 
to  build  up  a  more  adequate  representation  of  it  by 
means  of  quotations  from  the  author's  own  pen. 

It  had  many  and  diverse  affinities.  It  was  opti- 
mistic in  one  sense,  pessimistic  in  another.  Pan- 
theistic, idealistic,  hegelian,  are  epithets  that  very 
naturally  arise  on  the  reader's  lips  to  describe  it; 
and  yet  some  part  there  is  of  the  connotation  of 
each  of  these  epithets  that  made  my  father  vio- 
lently refuse  to  submit  to  their  imposition.  The 
ordinary  empirical  ethics  of  evolutionary  natural- 
ism can  find  a  perfect /<?rwzV  ^<?  j^'t'z/r  under  the 
system's  wings ;  and  yet  close  alongside  is  an  in- 
sistance  on  the  need  of  the  death  of  the  natural 
man  and  of  a  supernatural  redemption,  more 
thorough-going  than  what  we  find  in  the  most 
evangelical  protestantism.  Dualism,  yet  monism  ; 
antinomianism,  yet  restraint;  atheism  (as  we  might 
almost  name  it, —  that  is,  the  swallowing  up  of  God 
in  Humanity)  as  the  last  result  of  God's  achieve- 
ment, —  such  are  some  of  the  first  aspects  of  this 


INTR  OD  UC  TION.  1 5 

at  bottom  very  simple  and  harmonious  view  of  the 
world. 

It  all  flowed  from  two  perceptions,  insights,  con- 
victions, whatever  one  pleases  to  call  them,  in  its 
author's  mind.  In  the  first  place,  he  felt  that  the 
individual  man,  as  such,  is  nothing,  but  owes  all  he 
is  and  has  to  the  race  nature  he  inherits,  and  to 
the  society  into  which  he  is  born.  And,  secondly, 
he  scorned  to  admit,  even  as  a  possibility,  that  the 
great  and  loving  Creator,  who  has  all  the  being 
and  the  power,  and  has  brought  us  as  far  as  tJiis, 
should  not  bring  us  throngJi,  and  out,  into  the  most 
triumphant  harmony. 

I  beseech  the  reader  from  now  onwards  to  listen 
to  my  stammering  exposition  in  a  very  uncritical 
mood  of  mind.  Do  not  squeeze  the  terms  or  the 
logic  too  hard  !  And  if  you  are  a  positivist,  do  not 
be  too  prompt  to  throw  the  book  down  with  an 
ejaculation  of  disgust  at  Alexandrian  theosophi- 
zing,  and  of  wonder  that  such  brain-spinning  should 
find  a  printer  at  the  present  day.  My  father's  own 
disgust  at  any  abstract  statement  of  his  system 
could  hardly  be  excelled  by  that  of  the  most  pos- 
itivistic  reader.  I  will  not  say  that  the  logical 
relations  of  its  terms  were  with  him  a  mere  after- 
thought; they  were  more  organic  than  that.  But 
the  core  and  centre  of  the  thing  in  him  was  always 


1 6  INTRODUCTION. 

instinct  and  attitude,  something  realized  at  a 
stroke,  and  felt  like  a  fire  in  his  breast;  and  all 
attempts  at  articulate  verbal  formulations  of  it 
were  makeshifts  of  a  more  or  less  desperately  im- 
potent kind.  This  is  why  he  despised  every  for- 
mulation he  made  as  soon  as  it  was  uttered,  and 
set  himself  to  the  Sisyphus-labor  of  producing  a 
new  one  that  should  be  less  irrelevant.  I  remem- 
ber hearing  him  groan,  when  struggling  in  this 
way,  "  Oh,  that  I  might  thunder  it  out  in  a  single 
interjection  that  would  tell  the  tvhole  of  it,  and 
never  speak  a  word  again ! "  But  he  paid  his 
tribute  to  necessity ;  and  few  writers  in  the  end 
were  more  prolix  than  he. 

To  begin  then,  —  trying  to  think  the  matter  in 
as  simple,  childlike,  and  empirical  a  fashion  as 
possible,  —  the  negativity  and  dearth  of  the  crea- 
ture (which  is  surely  a  part  of  the  truth  we  livingly 
feel  every  day  of  our  lives)^  is  an   elementary  and 

^  Empirically,  we  know  that  we  are  creatures  with  a  lack,  a 
destitution,  a  death,  an  ultimate  helplessness.  Which  of  us  but 
sometimes  "  lifts  a  pallid  face  in  prayer  to  God,  lest  some  hideous 
calamity  engulf  his  fairest  hopes  ?  .  .  .  We  are  all  without  real 
selfhood,  without  the  selfliood  which  comes  from  God  alone.  We 
have  only  a  showy  and  fallacious  one  .  .  .  which  is  wholly  inade- 
quate to  guarantee  us  against  calamity.  We  shiver  in  every  breeze, 
and  stand  aghast  at  every  cloud  that  passes  over  the  sun.  When 
our  ships  go  down  at  sea,  what  shrieks  wc  hear  from  blanched  and 
frenzied  lips  peopling  the  melancholy  main,  perturbing  the  sombre 
and  sympathetic  air  for  months  afterwards  !  When  our  children 
die,  and  take  back  to  heaven   the  brimming  innocence  which  our 


If^TRODUCTION.  1 7 

primitive  factor  in  the  creative  problem.  It  plays 
an  active  and  dynamic  part  through  Mr.  James's 
pages,  and  is  the  feature  which  made  me  say,  a 
moment  back,  that  "  hegelian "  would  be  a  very 
natural  epithet  to  use  in  describing  the  doctrine 
they  set  forth,  Hegel  sometimes  speaks  of  the 
Divinity  making  an  illusion  first,  in  order  to  re- 
move it;  setting  up  his  own  antithesis  in  order  to 
the  subsequent  neutralization  thereof.  And  this 
will  also  very  well  describe  the  creative  drama  as 
pictured  by  Mr.  James,  provided  one  bear  in 
mind  that  the  preliminary  production  of  an  illu- 
sory stage  of  being  is  forced  upon  the  Creator  by 
the  character  of  that  positively  yawning  emptiness 
which  is  the  opposite  of  himself,  and  with  which 
he  has  to  deal, 

corrupt  manhood  feels  no  use  for,  and  therefore  knows  not  how  to 
shelter;  when  our  friends  dropoff;  when  our  property  exhales; 
when  our  reason  totters  on  its  throne,  and  menaces  us  with  a 
downfall,  —  who  then  is  strong?  Who  in  fact,  if  he  were  left  in 
these  cases  for  a  moment  to  himself,  —  that  is,  if  he  were  not  stead- 
ied in  his  own  despite  by  the  mere  life  of  routine  and  tradition,  — 
but  would  be  ready  to  renounce  God  and  perish  ?  So  too  our 
ennui  and  prevalent  disgust  of  life,  which  lead  so  many  suffering 
souls  every  year  to  suicide,  which  drive  so  many  tender  and  yearn- 
ing and  angel-freighted  natures  to  drink,  to  gambling,  to  fierce  and 
ruinous  excess  of  all  sorts,  —  what  are  these  things  but  the  tacit 
avowal  (audible  enough,  however,  to  God  !)  that  we  are  nothing  at 
all  and  vanity;  that  we  are  absolutely  without  help  in  ourselves  ; 
and  that  we  can  never  be  blessed  and  tranquil  until  God  take 
compassion  on  us,  and  conjoin  us  livingly  and  immortally  with 
himself  ? "  —  Christianity  the  Logic  of  Creation,  p.  133. 

2 


1 8  INTRODUCTION. 

The  ordinary  orthodox  view  of  creation  is  that 
Jehovah  explodes  the  universe  absolutely  out  of 
what  was  previously  pure  blank ;  his  fiat  whacks 
it  down  upon  the  tabula  rasa  of  time  and  space, 
and  there  it  remains.  Such  simple,  direct,  and 
"magical"  creation  is  always  derided  by  Mr.  James 
as  a  childish  idea.  The  nw/  nothingness  cannot 
become  thus  promptly  the  seat  of  real  being;  it 
must  taint  with  its  own  "  abysmal  destitution " 
whatever  first  comes  to  fill  it,  and  reduce  it  to  the 
status  of  a  sham,  or  unreal  magic-lantern  picture 
projected  on  the  dark  inane. 

This  first  result  of  the  intercourse  of  the  creative 
energy  with  the  void  may  become  however,  by  de- 
caying unto  itself,  a  surface  of  rebound  for  another 
movement,  of  which  the  result  is  real.  Creation 
is  thus  made  up  of  two  stages,  the  first  of  which  is 
mere  scaffolding  to  the  second,  which  is  the  final 
work.  Mr.  James's  terminology  is  a  little  vacillat- 
ing with  regard  to  these  two  stages.  On  the  whole, 
"  formation  "  is  the  word  he  oftenest  applies  to 
the  first  stage,  and  "  redemption  "  to  the  second. 
His  view  of  the  matter  is  obviously  entirely  differ- 
ent from  the  simple,  direct  process  taught  by  nat- 
ural theology  and  by  the  Jewish  Scripture ;  and  it 
as  obviously  agrees  in  point  of  form  with  the  com- 
posite movement  of  the  Christian  scheme. 

All  this  is  verbally  simple  enough ;   but  what  are 


INTRO  D  UC  TION.  1 9 

the  facts  it  covers  ?  To  speak  very  oracularly,  Na- 
ture is  for  Mr.  James  the  movement  of  formation, 
the  first  quickening  of  the  void  unto  itself;  and 
Society  is  the  movement  of  redemption,  or  the 
finished  spiritual  work  of  God. 

Now,  both  "  Nature  "  and  Society  "  are  words  of 
peculiar  and  complex  meaning  in  Mr.  James's  writ- 
ings, so  that  much  explanation  is  needed  of  the 
assertions  just  laid  down. 

"  Nature  "  and  "  Society,"  if  I  understand  our 
author  correctly,  do  not  differ  from  each  other  at 
all  in  substance  or  material.  Their  substance  is 
the  Creator  himself,  for  he  is  the  sole  positive 
substance  in  the  universe,  all  else  being  nothing- 
ness.^ But  they  differ  in  form ;  for  while  Nature 
is  the  Creator  immersed  and  lost  in  a  nothingness 
self-affirming  and  obstructive.  Society  is  the  same 
Creator,  with  the  nothingness  saved,  determined 
to  transparency  and  self-confession,  and  traversed 
from  pole  to  pole  by  his  life-giving  rays. 

1  This  is  why  I  said  one  might  call  the  system  pantheistic. 
Mr.  James  denounces  pantheism,  however  ;  for  he  supposes  it  to 
exclude  a  dualism  even  of  logical  elements,  and  to  represent  the 
Divine  as  manifesting  itself  in  phenomena  by  a  simple  outward 
movement  without  subsequent  recoil.  It  is  a  matter  of  verbal 
definition  after  all.  One  might  say  that  the  gist  of  his  differences, 
both  with  pantheism  and  with  ordinary  theism,  is  that  while  the 
latter  represent  creation  to  be  essentially  the  formation  of  Two 
out  of  an  original  One,  to  Mr.  James  it  is  something  more  like  the 
union  into  One  of  an  original  Two. 


20  INTRODUCTION. 

The  matter  covered  by  both  these  words  is  Hu- 
manity and  the  totality  of  its  conditions,  nothing 
short  of  the  entire  world  of  phenomenal  expe- 
rience,—  mineral,  vegetable,  animal,  and  human, 
—  "  Nature  "  culminating  in,  whilst  "  Society  " 
starts  from,  the  moral  and  religious  conscious- 
ness of  man.  This  is  why  I  said  the  system  could 
hospitably  house  anything  that  naturalistic  evolu- 
tionism might  ever  have  to  say  about  man ;  for, 
according  to  both  doctrines,  man's  morality  and 
rehgion,  his  consciousness  of  self  and  his  moral 
conscience,  are  natural  products  like  everything 
else  we  see.  Now,  for  Mr.  James,  the  conscious- 
ness of  self  and  the  conscience  are  the  hinges  on 
which  the  process  of  creation  turns,  as  it  slowly 
revolves  from  its  formative  and  natural  to  its 
redeemed  and  spiritual  position  of  equilibrium. 
What  I  say  will  still  be  dark  and  unreal  enough 
to  those  who  know  nothing  of  the  original ;  but 
the  exercise  of  a  little  patience  will  erelong  make 
things  clear. 

What  is  self-consciousness  or  morality  ?  and 
what  is  conscience  or  religion? — for  our  author 
uses  synonymously  the  terms  within  each  pair. 
The  terminology  is  at  first  bewildering,  and  the  met- 
aphysical results  confounding;  for  whilst  the  stuff 
of  both  morality  and  religion  is,  so  to  speak,  the 
very  energy,  the  very  being,  of  God  himself,  yet 


INTROD  UCTION.  2 1 

in  morality  that  being  takes  wholly,  and  in  religion 
it  takes  partly,  the  form  of  a  lie.  Let  us  consider 
the  matter  naively  and  mythically,  so  as  to  under- 
stand. Remember,  that  for  Mr.  James  a  mere  re- 
sistless "  bang  "  is  no  creative  process  at  all,  and 
that  a  real  creation  means  nothing  short  of  a  real 
bringing  to  life  of  the  essential  nothingness,  which 
is  the  eternal  antithesis  to  God,  —  a  work,  there- 
fore, upon  that  nothingness  actually  performed. 
Well,  then,  God  must  work  upon  the  void ;  but 
how  can  the  trackless  void  be  wrought  upon?  It 
must  first  be  vivified  and  quickened  into  some 
kind  of  substantiality  of  its  own,  and  made  exis- 
tential and  phenomenal  instead  of  merely  logical 
and  essential  that  it  was,  before  any  further  fash- 
ioning of  it  can  take  place.  God  then  must,  in  the 
first  instance,  make  a  being  that  has  the  void  for 
its  other  parent,  and  involves  nothingness  in  itself. 
To  make  a  long  story  short,  then,  God's  first  pro- 
duct is  a  Nature  subject  to  self -consciousness  or  self- 
hood,—  that  is,  a  Nature  essentially  good,  as  being 
divine,  but  the  several  members  whereof  appropri- 
ate the  goodness,  and  egoistically  and  atheistically  ^ 

1  "  That  is  to  say,  the  only  hindrance  to  men's  believing  in 
God  as  a  creator  is  their  inability  to  believe  in  themselves  as  cre- 
ated. Self-consciousness,  the  sentiment  of  personality,  the  feeling 
I  have  of  life  in  myself,  absolute  and  underived  from  any  other 
save  in  a  natural  way,  is  so  subtly  and  powerfully  atheistic,  that, 
no  matter  how  loyally  I  may  be  taught  to  insist  upon  creation  as 


22  IXTRODUCTIOX. 

seek  to  identify  it  with  their  private  selves.  This 
selfishness  of  the  several  members  is  the  trail  of 
the  serpent  over  creation,  the  coming  to  life  of  the 
ancestral  void.  It  negates,  because  it  entirely  in- 
verts, God's  own  energy,  which  is  undiluted  altru- 
istic love ;  it  intercepts  the  truth  of  his  impartial 
flowing  tides ;  it  is  an  utter  lie,  and  yet  a  lie  under 
the  dense  and  unsuspecting  mask  of  which  alone 
*'  the  great  and  sincere  Creator  of  men  "  is  able 
gradually  to  conciliate  our  instincts,  and  win  us 
over  to  the  truth. 

This  happens  whenever  we  are  weaned  from  the 
lie ;  for  the  abandoning  of  the  lie  in  this  instance 
coalesces  in  the  same  conscious  act  with  the  con- 
fessing of  the  truth.  "  I  am  nothing  as  substan- 
tive, —  I  am  everything  as  recipient ;  "  this  is  a 
thought  in  which  both  I  and  the  Creator  figure, 
but  in  which  we  figure  in  perfectly  harmonious 
and  truthful  guise.  It  is  accordingly  the  threshold 
of  spiritual  life ;    and   instead  of  obstructing  and 

a  mere  traditional  or  legendary  fact,  I  never  feel  inclined  per- 
sonally to  believe  in  it,  save  as  the  fruit  of  some  profound  intel- 
lectual humiliation  or  hopeless  inward  vexation  of  spirit.  My 
inward  afflatus  from  this  cause  is  so  great,  I  am  conscious  of  such 
superabounding  personal  life,  that  I  am  satisfied,  for  my  own  part 
at  least,  that  my  sense  of  selfhood  must  in  some  subtle  exquisite 
way  find  itself  wounded  to  death  —  find  itself  become  death  in  fact, 
the  only  death  J  am  capable  of  believins:^  in  —  before  any  genuine 
spiritual  resuscitation  is  at  all  practicable  for  me." — Society  thi 
Redeemed  Form  of  Man,  p.  i8j. 


INTRODUCTION.  23 

striving  to  intercept,  it  welcomes  and  furthers  all 
that  the  divine  Love  may  have  in  store  for  every 
member  of  the  created  family. 

The  agents  of  the  wcaniiig  are  conscience  and 
religion.  In  the  philosophy  before  us,  these  fac- 
ulties are  considered  to  have  no  other  function 
than  that  of  being  ministers  of  death  to  the  fal- 
lacious selfliood.  They  have  no  positive  worth 
or  character,  and  are  mere  clearers  of  the  way. 
They  bring  no  new  content  upon  the  scene ;  they 
simply  permit  the  pre-existing  content  to  settle 
into  a  new  and  truer  form.  The  facts  of  our 
nature  with  every  man  in  it  blinded  with  pride 
and  jealousy,  and  stiffened  in  exclusiveness  and 
self-seeking,  are  one  thing,  —  that  thing  whose 
destinies  Church  and  State  are  invoked  to  con- 
trol, and  whose  tragic  and  discordant  history  we 
partly  know.  Those  very  same  facts,  after  con- 
science and  religion  have  played  their  part,  and 
undermined  the  illusion  of  the  self,  so  that  men 
acknowledge  their  life  to  come  from  God,  and 
love  each  other  as  God  loves,  having  no  exclu- 
sive private  cares,  will  form  the  kingdom  of  heaven 
on  earth,  the  regenerate  social  order  which  none 
of  us  yet  know.  In  a  word,  God  will  be  fully 
incarnated  at  last  in  a  form  that  no  longer  contra- 
dicts his  character,  in  what  Mr.  James  calls,  with 
Swedenborg,  the  Divine-Natural  Humanity.    God's 


24  INTRODUCTION. 

real  creature  is  this  aggregate  Humanity.  He  can- 
not be  partial  to  one  fractional  unit  of  us  more  than 
to  another.  And  the  only  difference  between  the 
unredeemed  and  the  regenerate  social  form  lies  in 
the  simple  fact,  that  in  the  former  the  units  will  not 
fall  into  relations  accordant  with  this  truth,  while 
in  the  latter,  such  an  attitude  is  the  one  they 
most  spontaneously  assume.  One  Substance,  ex- 
tricating itself  by  finding  at  last  a  true  form, — 
such  is  the  process,  once  begun !  And  no  one 
part  is  either  "lost"  or  "saved"  in  any  other  sense 
than  that  it  either  arrests  or  furthers  the  transmis- 
sion through  itself  to  others  of  God's  life-giving 
tides. 

This  probably  sounds  to  most  ears  thin  and  cold 
and  mythical  enough,  —  the  "Divine-Natural  Hu- 
manity "  especially,  with  its  abolition  of  selfishness, 
appearing  quite  as  shallow  and  insipid  a  dream  as 
any  other  paradise  excogitated  by  imaginative 
man.  This  is  the  inevitable  result  of  trying  to 
express  didactically  and  articulately,  in  the  form  of 
a  story,  what  in  its  origin  is  more  like  an  intuition, 
sentiment,  or  attitude  of  the  soul.  The  matter 
shall  be  immediately  thickened  and  filled  out  to 
the  reader's  understanding  by  quotations  from  Mr. 
James  himself,  touching  successively  the  various 
elements  of  the  scheme.  But  if  I  may  be  per- 
mitted an  opinion  here,  I  should  say  that  in  no 


INTROD  UCTION.  2  5 

such  successive  shape  as  this  did  the  scheme  have 
authority  over  Mr.  James's  own  mind.  I  fancy 
that  his  behef  in  its  truth  was  strongest  when  the 
dumb  sense  of  human  Hfe,  sickened  and  baffled 
as  it  is  forever  by  the  strange  unnatural  fever  in 
its  breast  of  unreaHty  and  dearth  strugghng  with 
infinite  fulness  and  possession,  became  a  sort  of 
voice  within  him,  and  cried  out,  "  This  must  stop  ! 
The  good,  the  good,  is  really  there,  and  must  see 
to  its  own!  Who  is  its  own?  Is  it  this  querulous 
usurping,  jealous  me,  sickened  of  defeat  and  done 
to  death,  and  glad  never  to  raise  its  head  again  ? 
Never  more  !  It  is  some  sweeter,  larger,  more  in- 
nocent and  generous  receptacle  of  life  than  that 
cadaverous  and  lying  thing  can  ever  be.^  Let 
///«^  but  be  removed,  and  the  other. may  come  in. 
And  there  must  be  a  way  to  remove  it,  for  God 
himself  is  there,  and  cannot  be  frustrated   forever 

1  "Just  in  proportion,  accordingly,  as  a  man's  spiritual  knowledge 
improves,  will  his  contempt  for  himself,  as  an  unmixed  spiritual 
tramp  and  irredeemable  vagabond,  increase  and  abound.  We 
might  very  well  bear  with  an  uninstructed  or  inexperienced  child, 
who,  shut  up  to  the  companionship  of  its  doll,  constructed  all  of 
sawdust  and  prunella,  looks  upon  it  as  spiritually  alive ;  but  one 
has  no  patience  with  an  experienced,  instructed  man  or  churchman, 
who  undergoes  precisely  the  same  hallucination  with  regard  to 
his  own  worthless  doll  of  a  selfhood,  —  which  is  destitute  even  of 
so  much  as  a  sawdust  and  prunella  reality,  —  and  conceives  that 
the  Divine  being  has  nothing  better  to  do  than  literally  to  bestow 
divine  and  immortal  life  upon  that  dead,  corrupt,  and  stinking 
thing."  —  New  Church  Independent,  September,  1S79,  p.  413. 


26  INTRODUCTION. 

of  his  aim,  —  least  of  all  by  such  an  obstacle  as 
that !  He  must  sonicJiozv,  and  by  eternal  necessity 
he  sJiall,  bring  the  kingdom  of  heaven  about !  " 

I  may  as  well  say  here,  once  for  all,  that  the 
kingdom  of  heaven  postulated  in  this  deep  and 
simple  way,  and  then  more  articulately  formu- 
lated as  the  "  Divine-Natural  Humanity,"  remained 
to  the  end  a  mere  postulate  or  programme  in  my 
father's  pages,  and  never  received  at  his  hands  any 
concrete  filling  out.  It  was  what  vnist  come  to 
be,  if  God  truly  exist,  —  an  assumption  we  owe 
to  his  power  and  his  love,  and  that  any  man  with 
a  sense  of  God's  reality  v^ill  scorn  to  hesitate  to 
make.  That,  moreover,  the  kingdom  was  to  be 
made  of  no  other  stuff  than  the  actual  stuff  of 
human  nature,  was  but  another  tribute, —  a  tribute 
of  manly  loyalty  to  the  real  divinity  of  the  Good 
existing  in  the  human  bosom  now.  In  his  earlier 
years,  between  1842  and  1850,  when  Mr.  James's 
ideas  were  being  settled  by  the  reading  of  Sweden- 
borg,  he  also  became  interested  in  the  socialistic 
fermentations  then  so  rife,  and  in  particular  in  the 
writings  of  Fourier.  His  first  two  works  shadow 
forth  the  Divine-Natural  Humanity  as  about  to  be 
born,  through  the  yoking  of  the  passions  into  har- 
monious social  service,  by  the  growth  of  socialis- 
tic organization,  in  place  of  the  old  regime  of 
Church  and  State,  among  men.     Since  then,  there 


INTRODUCTION.  2/ 

have  been  many  disappointments,  in  which  he 
shared ;  and  although  Fourier's  system  was  never 
displaced  from  his  mind  as  at  least  a  provisional 
representation  of  possible  redeemed  life,  I  think 
that  at  the  last  he  cared  little  to  dispute  about 
matters  of  detail,  being  willing  to  cast  the  whole 
burden  upon  God,  who  would  be  sure  to  order  it 
rightly  when  all  the  conditions  were  fulfilled. 

I  will  now  let  the  author  speak  as  much  as 
possible  for  himself.  And  perhaps  the  best  way 
to  begin  is  to  cull  a  few  of  the  numerous  pas- 
sages in  which  he  succinctly  states  the  necessities 
which,  by  its  own  intrinsic  logic,  the  problem  of 
creation  involves. 

"  Nothing  can  be  so  intensely  antagonistic  to 
the  conception  of  a  creator  as  that  of  a  creature. 
To  create  is  one  thing;  to  be  created  is  the  total 
and  exact  opposite  of  that  thing.  For  what  is 
one's  nature  as  a  creature?  It  is  abject  want  or 
destitution.  To  be  created  is  to  be  void  of  all 
things  in  one's  self,  and  to  possess  them  only  in 
another ;  and  if  I  am  the  creature  accordingly 
of  an  infinite  creator,  my  want  of  course  must 
be  infinite.  The  nature  of  a  thing  is  what  the 
tiling  is  in  itself,  and  apart  from  foreign  inter- 
ference. And  evidently  what  the  creature  is  in 
himself,  and  apart  from  the  creator,  is  sheer  noth- 


28  INTRODUCTION. 

ingness ;  that  is  to  say,  sheer  want  or  destitution,  — 
destitution  of  all  things,  whether  of  life,  of  exist- 
ence, or  even  of  being.  So  that  to  give  the  crea- 
ture natural  form  or  selfhood,  is  merely  to  vivify  the 
infinite  void  he  is  in  himself;  is  merely  to  organ- 
ize in  living  form  the  universal  destitution  he  is 
under  with  respect  to  the  creative  fulness."  ^ 

1  Secret  of  Swedenborg,  p.  47.  Another  statement  may  here 
be  given  :  — 

"  Swedenborg's  doctrine  summarily  stated  is,  that  what  we  call 
nature,  and  suppose  to  be  exactly  what  it  seems,  is  in  truth  a  thing 
of  strictly  human  and  strictly  divine  dimensions,  both  as  being  at 
one  and  the  same  moment  a  just  exponent  of  the  creature's  essen- 
tial want  or  finiteness,  and  of  the  creator's  essential  fulness  or 
infinitude.  .  .  . 

"  In  all  true  creation  the  creator  is  bound,  by  the  fact  of  his  giv- 
ing absolute  being  to  the  creature,  to  communicate  himself  —  make 
himself  over  —  without  stint  to  the  creature  ;  and  the  creature,  in 
his  turn,  because  he  gives  phenomenal  form  or  manifestation  to 
the  creative  power,  is  bound  to  absorb  the  creator  in  himself,  to 
appropriate  him  as  it  were  to  himself,  to  reproduce  his  infinite  or 
stainless  love  in  all  manner  of  finite  egotistic  form ;  so  that  the 
more  truly  the  creator  alone  is,  the  more  truly  the  creature  alone 
appears.  Now,  in  this  inevitable  immersion  which  creation  implies 
of  creative  being  in  created  form,  we  have,  according  to  Sweden- 
borg,  the  origin  of  nature.  It  grows  necessarily  out  of  the  obliga- 
tion the  creature  is  under  by  creation  to  appropriate  the  creator,  or 
reproduce  him  in  his  own  finite  lineaments.  It  overtly  consecrates 
the  covert  marriage  of  infinite  and  finite,  creator  and  creature.  By 
the  hypothesis  of  creation,  the  creator  gives  sole  and  absolute  being 
to  the  creature  ;  and  unless  therefore  the  creature  reverberate  the 
communication,  or  react  towards  the  creator,  the  latter  will  inevi- 
tably swallow  him  up,  or  extinguish  him.  .  .  .  Thus  in  the  hierar- 
chical marriage  of  creator  and  creature  which  we  call  creation,  the 
creator  yields  the  creature  the  primary  place  by  spontaneously 


INTRODUCTION.  29 

"  If,  accordingly,  the  creative  love  should  scru- 
ple to  permit  propriiim  or  selfhood  to  its  creature, 

assuming  himself  a  secondary  or  servile  one ;  gives  him  absolute 
or  objective  being  in  fact,  only  by  stooping  himself  to  the  limita- 
tions of  the  created  form.  .  .  . 

"  It  is  a  necessary  implication,  then,  of  the  truth  of  the  Divine- 
Natural  Humanity,  that  while  the  creator  gives  invisible  spiritual 
being  to  the  creature,  the  creature  in  his  turn  gives  natural  form  — 
gives  visible  existence  — to  the  creator  ;  or,  more  briefly,  while  the 
creator  gives  reality  to  the  creature,  the  creature  gives  phenome- 
nality  to  the  creator.  In  other  words  still  we  may  say,  that  while 
-the  creator  supplies  the  essential  or  properly  creative  element  in 
creation,  the  creature  supplies  its  existential  or  properly  constitu- 
tive element,  —  that  element  of  hold-back  or  resistance,  without 
which  it  could  never  put  on  manifestation.  Nature  is  the  attesta- 
tion of  this  ceaseless  give-and-take  between  creator  and  creature  ; 
the  nuptial  ring  that  confirms  and  consecrates  the  deathless  espou- 
sals of  infinite  and  finite.  In  spite,  therefore,  of  its  fertile  and 
domineering  actuality  to  sense,  it  is  as  void  of  all  reality  to  reason 
as  the  shadow  of  one's  person  in  a  glass.  It  is,  in  fact,  only  the 
outward  image  or  shadow  of  itself  which  is  cast  by  the  inward  or 
spiritual  world  upon  the  mirror  of  our  rudimentary  intelligence. 
And  inasmuch  as  the  shadow  or  subjective  image  of  itself  which 
any  object  projects  of  necessity  reproduces  the  object  in  inverse 
form,  so  nature,  being  the  subjective  image  or  shadow  of  God's 
objective  and  spiritual  creation,  turns  out  a  sheer  inversion  of 
spiritual  order ;  exhibits  the  creator's  fulness  veiled  by  the  crea- 
ture's want, —  the  creator's  perfection  obscured,  or  negatively  re- 
vealed, by  the  creature's  imperfection.  Spiritual  or  creative  order 
affirms  the  essential  unity  of  every  creature  with  every  other,  and 
of  all  with  the  creator.  Natural  or  created  order  must  conse- 
quently exhibit  the  contingent  or  phenomenal  oppugnancy  of 
every  creature  with  every  other,  and  of  all  with  the  creator ;  or 
else  furnish  no  adequate  foothold  or  flooring  to  the  spiritual 
world.  .  .  . 

"  The  logic  of  the  case  is  inexorable.     If  creation  at  its  culmi- 
nation be  an  exact  practical   equation  of  creator  and   creature, 


30  INTRODUCTION. 

scruple  to  endow  him  with  moral  consciousness, 
it  would  withhold  from  him  all  conscious  life  or 
joy,  and  leave  him  a  mere  form  of  vegetative  exist- 
ence. Creation,  to  allow  of  any  true  fellowship  or 
equality  between  creator  and  creature,  demands 
that  the  creature  be  hiuiself,  —  that  is,  be  naturally 
posited  to  his  own  consciousness.  And  he  cannot 
be  thus  posited  save  in  so  far  as  the  creative  love 
vivifies  his  essential  destitution,  organizes  it  in  liv- 
ing form,  and  by  the  experience  thus  engendered 
in  the  created  bosom  lays  a  basis  for  any  amount 
of  free  or  spiritual  reaction  in  the  creature  towards 
the  uncreated  good, 

"  One  sees  at  a  glance,  then,  how  very  discredit- 
able a  thing  creation  would  be  to  the  creator,  and 
how  very  injurious  to  the  creature,  if  it  stopped 
short  in  itself,  —  that  is,  contented  itself  with  simply 
giving  the  creature  natural  selfhood,  or  antagoniz- 
ing him  with  the  creator.     Nothing  could  be  more 

the  minus  of  the  latter  being  rigidly  equivalent  to  the  plus  of 
the  former,  then  it  incorporates  as  its  needful  basis  a  sphere  of 
experience  on  the  creature's  part  in  which  he  may  feel  himself 
utterly  remote  from  the  creator,  and  abandoned  to  his  own  re- 
sources,—  an  empirical  sphere  of  existence,  in  fine,  which  may 
unmistakably  identify  him  with  all  lower  things,  and  so  alienate 
him  from  (that  is,  make  him  consciously  another  than)  his  creator. 
Thus  creation,  with  Swedenborg,  being  at  its  apogee  a  rigid  equa- 
tion of  the  creator's  perfection  and  the  creature's  imperfection, 
necessitates  a  natural  history,  or  provisional  plane  of  projection 
upon  which  the  equation  may  be  wrought  out  to  its  most  definite 
issues."  —  Secret  of  S'vcdenborg,  pp.  2^-30. 


INTRO D UC TIOX.,  3  I 

hideous  to  conceive  of  than  a  creation  which 
should  end  by  exhibiting  the  subjective  antago- 
nism of  its  two  factors,  without  providing  for 
their  subsequent  objective  reconcihation ;  which 
should  show  every  cupidity  incident  to  the  ab- 
stract nature  of  the  creature  inflamed  to  infini- 
tude, while  the  helpless  creature  himself  at  the 
same  time  was  left  to  be  the  unlimited  prey  of  his 
nature."  ^ 

"  I  attempt  no  apology,  accordingly,  for  Swe- 
denborg's  doctrine  on  this  subject,  but  applaud  it 
with  all  my  heart.  I  perfectly  agree  with  him  that 
redemption  and  not  creation  avouches  the  proper 
glory  of  the  Divine  name.  Creation  is  not,  and 
cannot  be,  the  final  word  of  the  Divine  dealings 
with  us.  It  has  at  most  a  rigidly  subjective  effi- 
cacy as  affording  us  self-consciousness,  and  not 
the  least  objective  value  as  affording  us  any  spir- 
itual fellowship  of  the  Divine  perfection.  To  be 
naturally  created  indeed  —  to  be  created  an  image 
of  God  —  is  to  be  anything  except  a  spiritual  like- 
ness of  him.  The  law  of  the  image  is  subjectively 
to  invert  the  lineaments  of  its  original.  .  .  .  And 
to  be  spiritually  like  God  is  inwardly  to  undo  this 
subjective  inversion  of  the  divine  perfection  to 
which  we  find  ourselves  naturally  born  or  created, 
and  put  on  that  direct  or  objective  presentation 
1  Secret  of  Swedcnborg,  p   132. 


32  INTRODUCTION. 

of  it  to  which  we  are  historically  re-born  or  re- 
created." ^ 

"  You  see,  in  short,  how  infinitely  remote  from 
spiritual  sonship  to  God  our  natural  creation  leaves 
us,  and  how  obhgatory  it  is  upon  him  therefore,  if 
he  would  ever  spiritually  affiliate  us  to  himself,  to 
give  us  redemption  from  our  own  nature.  And 
this  great  redemption,  how  shall  it  ever  be  able  to 
come  about?  By  the  very  nature  of  the  case,  the 
sphere  of  its  evolution  is  restricted  to  the  limits  of 
the  created  consciousness,  so  that  the  creator  can 
command  absolutely  no  enginery  to  effect  it  which 
is  not  supplied  exclusively  by  the  resources  of  that 
consciousness."  ^ 

The  tragic  evolution  of  the  selfhood  itself,  "  a 
limitation  upon  human  life  which  on  its  face  is  one 
of  inconceivable  malignity,"  is  the  only  enginery 
required.     But  of  its  tragedy  anon.     Meanwhile  — 

"  In  truth,  this  altogether  unobtrusive  fact  of 
selfhood  or  natural  life  which  we  are  all  born  to, 
and  which  we  therefore  think  nothing  of,  but  accept 
as  a  mere  matter  of  course,  is  itself  the  eternal 
marvel  of  creation.  We  ourselves  can  modify  ex- 
istence   almost   at  pleasure ;    we   can   change  the 

*  Secret  of  Swedenborg,  p.  48. 
2  Ibid.,  p.  57. 


INTRODUCTION.  33 

form  of  existing  things,  —  that  is,  can  convert 
natural  forms  into  artificial  ones.  But  we  cannot 
confer  life ;  cannot  make  these  artificial  forms  self- 
conscious  or  living.  We  can  turn  a  block  of  wood 
into  a  table,  a  block  of  stone  into  a  statue ;  but 
our  work  in  no  wise  reflects  the  vivacity  of  Nature, 
because  we  not  being  life  in  ourselves  cannot  pos- 
sibly communicate  life  to  the  work  of  our  hands. 
We  frame  a  beautiful  effigy  of  life;  but  the  ^'i^^y 
remains  forever  uninhabited,  forever  irresponsive 
to  the  love  which  fashions  it;  in  short,  forever 
unconscious  or  dead. 

"  Now,  the  splendor  of  the  creative  activity  is 
that  it  makes  even  this  Q.%L^y  of  itself  alive  with  the 
amplest  life ;  its  product  being  no  cold  inanimate 
statue,  but  a  living,  breathing,  exulting  person. 
In  short,  the  everlasting  miracle  is  that  God  is  able, 
in  giving  us  himself,  to  endow  us  with  our  own 
finite  selfhood  as  well ;  leaving  us  thereby  so  un- 
identified with  himself,  so  utterly  free  and  untram- 
melled to  our  own  consciousness,  as  to  be  able 
very  often  seriously  to  doubt,  and  not  seldom  per- 
manently to  deny,  his  own  existence.  And  this 
miracle,  I  say,  is  utterly  inexplicable  upon  any 
datum  but  that  I  have  alleged ;  namely,  that  God 
is  so  truly  infinite  in  love  as  not  to  shrink  from 
shrouding  his  uncreated  splendor  in  his  creature's 
lineaments,  from  eternally  humiliating  himself  to 

3 


34  introduction: 

the  lowest  possibilities  of  creaturely  imbecility  and 
iniquity,  in  order  that  the  creature  may  thus  be- 
come freely  or  spiritually  elevated  to  the  otherwise 
impracticable  heights  of  his  majestic  wisdom  and 
goodness. 

"  I  ask  no  indulgence  of  my  reader  for  this  lan- 
guage. I  literally  mean  what  I  say,  that  creation 
is  absolutely  contingent  upon  the  Divine  ability  to 
humble  himself  to  the  creature's  level,  to  dimin- 
ish himself  to  the  creature's  natural  dimensions. 
Language  is  incapable  of  painting  too  vividly  the 
strength  of  my  convictions  on  this  subject.  If  the 
creature  by  the  bare  fact  of  his  creatureship  be 
demonstrably  void  of  life  in  himself,  then  the  crea- 
tor can  only  succeed  in  rescuing  him  from  this  in- 
trinsic death,  and  elevating  him  to  himself  by  first 
abasing  himself  to  the  creature ;  that  is,  allowing 
his  proper  infinitude  or  perfection  to  be  so  swal- 
lowed up  in  the  other's  proper  finiteness  or  imper- 
fection, as  never  by  any  possibility  to  come  into 
the  least  overt  collision  with  it.  Thus,  whenever  I 
draw  a  breath  or  perform  any  automatic  function ; 
when  I  see  or  hear  or  smell  or  taste  or  touch; 
when  I  hunger  or  thirst;  when  I  think  or  take 
cognizance  of  any  truth ;  when  I  glow  with  pas- 
sion;  when  I  do  good  or  evil  to  my  fellow-man,^ 
my  ability  in  all  these  cases  is  due  exclusively  to 
the  great  truth  that  God's  love  to  me  is  so  truly 


INTRODUCTION.  35 

infinite  (that  is,  untainted  by  the  least  admixture  of 
love  to  himself)  as  to  permit  him,  within  the  entire 
periphery  of  my  consciousness,  physical,  intellect- 
ual, and  moral,  to  veil  himself  so  effectually  from 
sight,  to  obscure  and  as  it  were  annihilate  himself 
so  completely  on  my  behalf,  that  I  cannot  help 
feeling  myself  to  exist  absolutely  or  irrespectively 
of  him,  and  enjoy  a  conscious  ability  not  only 
to  do  what  is  congruous  with  his  ultimate  good 
pleasure  in  me,  but  to  abound,  if  I  please,  at  any 
moment  in  all  manner  of  profane,  injurious,  and 
filthy  behavior."  ^ 

"  There  is  no  alternative  if  creation  is  really  to 
take  place.  The  creative  love  must  either  disavow 
its  infinitude,  and  so  renounce  creation,  or  else  it 
must  frankly  submit  to  all  the  degradation  the 
created  nature  imposes  upon  it,  —  that  is,  it  must 
consent  to  be  converted  from  infinite  love  in  itself  to 
an  altogether  finite  love  in  the  creature,"  namely, 
the  love  of  self  "  This  is  the  only  true  or  philo- 
sophic conception  of  creation,  —  namely,  the  aban- 
donment of  yourself  to  what  is  not  yourself  in  a 
manner  so  intimate  and  hearty,  as  that  you  thence- 
forth shall  utterly  disappear  within  the  precincts 
of  its  existence ;  shall  become  phenomenally  ex- 
tinct within  the  entire  realm  of  its  personality, 
while  it  alone  shall  appear  to  be."  The  divine 
^  Substance  and  Shadow,  pp.  S3,  84. 


36  INTRODUCTION. 

creation  is  no  exception  to  this  law,  which  "  neces- 
sitates that  the  creature  shall  not  even  appear  to  be 
save  by  the  creator's  actual  or  objective  disappear- 
ance within  all  the  field  of  his  subjective  conscious- 
ness; save  by  the  creator's  becoming  objectively 
merged,  obscured,  drowned  out,  so  to  speak,  in  the 
created  subjectivity."  ^ 

Elsewhere  the  same  truth  is  expressed  in  a  way 
which  to  ordinary  ears  might  sound  almost  revolt- 
ingly  paradoxical,  but  which  can  alone  bring  out 
the  full  depth  of  its  meaning. 

"  Creator  and  creature,  then,  are  strictly  corre- 

1  "  Thus  there  is  no  way  open  to  us,  philosophically,  of  account- 
ing for  selfhood  in  the  human  bosom,  save  upon  the  postulate  of  its 
being  the  mask  of  an  infi7ute  spiritual  sjibstance  now  imprisoned,  but 
eventually  to  be  set  free,  in  our  nature, — a  substance  whose  proper 
energy  consists  in  its  incessantly  going  out  of  itself,  or  communi- 
cating itself  to  what  is  not  itself,  to  what  indeed  is  infinitely  alien 
and  repugnant  to  itself,  and  dwelling  there  infinitely  and  eternally 
as  in  its  very  self.  That  is  to  say,  the  Divine  being  or  substance  is 
Love,  —  love  without  any  the  least  set-off  or  limitation  of  self-love  ; 
infinite  or  creative  love  in  short.  And  it  communicates  itself  to 
the  creature,  accordingly,  in  no  voluntary  or  finite,  but  in  purely 
spontaneous  or  infinite  measure,  —  in  a  way  so  to  speak  of  over- 
whelming/^jw^w  ;  so  that  we  practically  encounter  no  limit  to  our 
faculty  of  appropriating  it,  but  on  the  contrary  sensibly  and  ex- 
quisitely feel  it  to  be  our  own  indisputable  being ;  feel  it  to  be  in 
fact  our  inmost,  most  vital,  and  inseparable  self  and  unhesitatingly 
call  it  vie  and  mine,  you  and  yours  ;  cleaving  to  it  as  inmost  bone 
of  our  bone,  and  veritable  flesh  of  our  flesh,  and  incontinently 
renouncing  all  things  for  it."  —  Society  the  Redeemed  Form  of  Man, 
p.  162. 


INTRODUCTION.  37 

lated  existences, — the  latter  remorselessly  implicat- 
ing or  involving  the  former ;  the  former  in  his  turn 
assiduously  explicating  or  evolving  the  latter.  The 
Creator  is  in  truth  the  inferior  term  of  the  relation, 
and  the  creature  its  superior  term ;  although  in 
point  of  appearance  the  relationship  is  reversed,  — 
the  Creator  being  thought  to  be  primary  and  con- 
trolling, while  the  creature  is  thought  secondary 
and  subservient.  The  truth  incurs  tlys  humilia- 
tion, undergoes  this  falsification,  on  our  behalf 
exclusively,  who,  because  we  have  by  nature  no 
perception  of  God  as  a  spirit,  but  only  as  a  person 
like  ourselves,  are  even  brutally  ignorant  of  the 
divine  power  and  ways.  But  it  is  a  sheer  humil- 
iation nevertheless ;  for  in  very  truth  it  is  the 
Creator  alone  who  gives  subjective  constitution  to 
us,  only  that  we,  appearing  to  ourselves  thereupon 
absolutely  to  be,  may  ever  after  give  objective 
reality  to  him.^  Thus  creation  is  not  a  something 
out\vardly  achieved  by  God  in  space  and  time, 
but  a  something  inwardly  wrought  by  him  within 
the  compass  exclusively  of  human  nature  or  hu- 
man consciousness ;  a  something  subjectively  con- 
ceived by  his  love,  patiently  borne  or  elaborated 
by  his  wisdom,  and  painfully  brought  forth  by  his 
power, — just  as  the  child  is  subjectively  conceived, 

1  As  effective  Creator,  namely.  A  few  redundant  words  have 
been  omitted  from  the  passage,  which  will  be  found  in  the  "  Secret 
of  Swedenborg,"  pp.  185,  1S6.  —  Ed. 


38  INTRODUCTION'. 

patiently  borne,  and  painfully  brought  forth  by  the 
mother.  Creation  is  no  brisk  activity  on  God's 
part,  but  only  a  long  patience  or  suffering.  It  is 
no  ostentatious  self-assertion,  no  dazzling  parade 
of  magical,  irrational,  or  irresponsible  power ;  it 
is  an  endless  humiliation  or  prorogation  of  him- 
self to  all  the  lowest  exigencies  of  the  created 
consciousness.  In  short,  it  is  no  finite  divine  ac- 
tion, as  we  stupidly  dream,  giving  the  creature 
objective  or  absolute  projection  from  his  creator; 
it  is  in  truth  and  exclusively  an  infinite  divine 
passion,  which,  all  in  giving  its  creature  subjec- 
tive or  phenomenal  existence,  contrives  to  con- 
vert this  provisional  existence  of  his  into  objective 
or  real  being,  by  freely  endowing  the  created  na- 
ture with  all  its  own  pomp  of  love,  of  wisdom,  and 
of  power." 

These  two  conceptions,  of  God's  unendingly- 
patient  self-surrender  to  us,  and  of  our  intrinsic 
nothingness,  formed  the  deepest  springs  of  Mr. 
James's  view  of  life.  He  has  no  words  of  scorn 
too  deep  for  the  venerable  notion  of  Christian 
theology  that  God  creates  for  his  own  glory ;  and 
when  he  vindicates  his  own  idea  of  the  divine 
character,  it  is  in  language  by  whose  passionate 
fervor  all  must  be  impressed. 

Here  are  some  passages  in  point:  — 


INTRODUCTION.  39 

"  It  is  an  easy  enough  thing  to  find  a  holiday- 
God  who  is  all  too  selfish  to  be  touched  with  the 
infirmities  of  his  own  creatures, —  a  God,  for  ex- 
ample, who  has  nought  to  do  but  receive  assiduous 
court  for  a  work  of  creation  done  myriads  of  ages 
ago,  and  which  is  reputed  to  have  cost  him  in  the 
doing  neither  pains  nor  patience,  neither  affection 
nor  thought,  but  simply  the  utterance  of  a  dramatic 
word ;  and  who  is  willing,  accordingly,  to  accept 
our  decorous  Sunday  homage  in  ample  quitance 
of  obligations  so  unconsciously  incurred  on  our 
part,  so  lightly  rendered  and  so  penuriously  sanc- 
tioned on  his.  Every  sect,  every  nation,  every 
family  almost,  offers  some  pet  idol  of  this  descrip- 
tion to  our  worship.  But  I  am  free  to  confess 
that  I  have  long  outgrown  this  loutish  conception 
of  deity.  I  can  no  longer  bring  myself  to  adore  a 
characteristic  activity  in  the  God  of  my  worship, 
which  falls  below  the  secular  average  of  human 
character.  In  fact,  what  I  crave  with  all  my  heart 
and  understanding,  — what  my  very  flesh  and  bones 
cry  out  for,  —  is  no  longer  a  Sunday  but  a  week- 
day divinity,  a  working  God,  grimy  with  the  dust 
and  sweat  of  our  most  carnal  appetites  and  pas- 
sions, and  bent  not  for  an  instant  upon  inflating 
our  worthless  pietistic  righteousness,  but  upon  the 
patient,  toilsome,  thorough  cleansing  of  our  physi- 
cal and  moral  existence  from  the  odious  defilement 


40  INTRODUCTION. 

it  has  contracted,  until  we  each  and  all  present  at 
last  in  body  and  mind  the  deathless  &^gy  of  his 
own  uncreated  loveliness."  ^ 

"  Accordingly,  when  orthodoxy  commends  God, 
the  universal  creator,  to  our  rational  reverence  and 
affection,  under  the  guise  of  a  great  melodramatic 
being  so  essentially  heartless  as  to  live  for  untold 
eternities  without  feeling  any  desire  for  compan- 
ionship, so  essentially  irrational  that  it  cost  him 
no  effort  of  thought  to  summon  the  universe  into 
absolute  being";  when  "natural  religion  repre- 
sents creation  as  an  act  of  pure  will  on  God's  part, 
a  movement  of  simple  caprice,  involving  not  one 
particle  of  the  honest  labor  and  sweat  which  go  to 
the  execution  of  any  humane  enterprise,  —  say,  the 
growing  or  the  making  or  the  baking  of  a  loaf  of 
bread,"  —  "I  will  not  acknowledge  a  God  so  void 
of  human  worth,  so  every  way  level  to  the  char- 
acter of  a  mere  ostentatious  showman  or  conjuror. 
It  is  just  such  a  childish  caricature  of  deity  as 
Byron  might  paint  to  match  those  childish  cari- 
catures of  manhood  with  which  his  purulent  im- 
agination runs  riot.  I  am  constrained  by  every 
inspiration  of  true  manhood  to  demand  for  my 
worship  a  perfectly  human  deity;  that  is  to  say,  a 
deity  who  is  so  intent  upon  rescuing  every  creature 
he  has  made,  from  the  everlasting  death  and  damna- 
1  Secret  of  Swedenborg,  pp.  6,  7. 


INTRODUCTION.  41 

tion  he  bears  about  in  himself  as  finitely  constituted, 
as  not  to  shrink  if  need  be  from  humbling  himself 
to  every  patient  form  of  ignominy,  and  feeding  con- 
tentedly year  in  and  year  out,  century  after  century, 
and  millennium  after  millennium,  upon  the  literal 
breath  of  our  self-righteous  contempt."  ^ 

"  We  laugh,  as  I  said  awhile  ago,  at  an  inventor 
who  should  ask  us  to  take  his  genius  on  trust,  or 
without  any  evidence  of  its  reality.  And  there 
can  be  no  more  offensive  tribute  to  the  divine 
name  than  to  show  him  a  deference  we  deny  to 
the  rankest  charlatan.  How  infinitely  unworthy 
of  God  it  would  be  to  exact  or  expect  of  the  abso- 
lute and  unintelligent  creatures  of  his  power  a 
belief  out  of  all  proportion  to  their  sensible  knowl- 
edge, or  unbacked  by  anything  but  tradition  !  .  .  . 
I  am  free  to  confess  for  my  own  part  that  I  have 
no  belief  in  God's  absolute  or  irrelative  and  un- 
conditional perfection.  I  have  not  the  least  sen- 
timent of  worship  for  his  name,  the  least  sentiment 
of  awe  or  reverence  towards  him,  considered  as 
a  perfect  person  sufficient  unto  himself.  That 
style  of  deity  exerts  no  attraction  either  upon  my 
heart  or  understanding.  Any  mother  who  suckles 
her  babe  upon  her  own  breast,  any  bitch  in  fact 
who  litters  her  periodical  brood  of  pups,  presents 
to  my  imagination  a  vastly  nearer  and  sweeter 
1  Substance  and  Shadow,  pp.  72,  73. 


42  INTRODUCTION. 

divine  charm.  What  do  I  care  for  a  goodness 
which  boasts  of  a  hopeless  aloofness  from  my 
own  nature,  except  to  hate  it  with  a  manly  inward 
hatred?  And  what  do  I  care  for  a  truth  which 
professes  to  be  eternally  incommunicable  to  its 
own  starving  progeny,  but  to  avert  myself  from 
it  with  a  manly  outward  contempt?  Let  men  go 
on  to  cherish  under  whatever  name  of  virtue,  or 
wisdom,  or  power  they  will  the  idol  of  self-suffi- 
ciency; I  for  my  part  will  cherish  the  name  of 
him  alone  whose  insufficiency  to  himself  is  so  ab- 
ject that  he  is  incapable  of  realizing  Jiimself  except 
in  others.  In  short,  I  neither  can  nor  will  spirit- 
ually confess  any  deity  who  is  not  essentially  hii- 
i7tan,  and  existentially  thence  exclusively  statural ; 
that  is  to  say,  devoid  of  all  distinctively  personal 
or  limitary  pretensions."  ^ 

It  is  plain  enough  that  a  God  like  this  can  be 
neither  a  judge,  nor  a  respecter,  of  persons;  that 
every  creature,  as  such,  must  be  as  dear  to  him 
as  every  other;  and  that  private  differences  must 
be  melted  down  in  the  warmth  of  his  charity,  as 
dust  disappears  in  a  furnace  blast.  Our  desperate 
clinging  to  private  differences  is  what  makes  us 
the  great  enemies  we  are  to  the  Creator,  and  is 
the  next  point  it  will  be  well  to  take  up. 
1  Society  the  Redeemed  Form  of  Man,  pp.  333,  334. 


IN'TRODUCTION.  43 

Mr.  James  uses  the  words  "  proprium  "  and  "  self- 
hood "  to  designate  what  more  properly  should  be 
called  selfishness  or  self-love;  for  the  faculty  in 
question  is  evidently  not  the  mere  cognitive  aware- 
ness of  one's  self  as  a  special  part  of  all  exist- 
ence,—  which  would  be  self-consciousness  merely, 
—  but  an  active  emotional  interest  in  the  part  so 
singled  out,  to  the  exclusion  of  the  rest.  Mr. 
James  calls  it  sometimes  the  deliverance  of  our 
"  consciousness,"  sometimes  that  of  our  "  sense." 
Sometimes  he  calls  it  our  "morality," — a  very 
unusual  use  of  the  word,  but  one  which  has  deep 
reasons  in  his  system.  On  the  whole,  however, 
he  has  no  properly  psychological  doctrine  on  the 
subject,  but  merely  takes  his  stand  upon  the  empir- 
ical fact  that  this  surly  and  jealous  principle  exists 
within  us,  and  then  proceeds  to  tell  its  function  and 
its  fate. 

"  Morality  expresses  the  sentiment  I  have  of  my 
own  absoluteness,  the  feeling  I  have  of  a  selfhood 
strictly  independent  of  that  of  any  other  man.  .  .  . 
It  gives  us  that  ample  individual  development  and 
nursing,  that  affluent  preliminary  experience  of 
our  finite  selves,  which  is  necessary  to  base  or 
engender  our  subsequent  unlimited  social  expan- 
sion. It  lifts  us  out  of  the  mud  of  animality,  out 
of  the  mire  of  mere  natural  passion  and  appetite, 


44  INTRODUCTION. 

and  endows  us  with  selfhood  or  soul,  —  that  is, 
with  the  sense  of  a  life  so  much  more  intimate  and 
near  than  that  of  the  body,  as  to  lead  us  to  identify 
ourselves  with  it  or  to  cleave  to  it  alone,  cheer- 
fully forsaking  all  things  for  it,  .  .  .  so  allying  us 
to  our  own  inexperienced  imaginations  with  God ; 
giving  us  that  sentiment  of  individual  power  and 
glory  which  is  unknown  to  the  animal  nature,  and 
which  is  the  coarse  rude  germ  of  all  our  subse- 
quent conceptions  of  spiritual  things ;  whispering 
in  short  in  our  fondest  hearts,  Ye  shall  be  as  God, 
knowing  good  and  evil.  .  .  . 

"Self-assertion  is  thus  so  clearly  the  fundamental 
law,  the  vital  breath,  of  our  moral  life,  that  it  is  no 
wonder  we  cling  to  that  life  as  the  true  end  of  our 
being,  and  require  an  internal  divine  quickening,  or 
the  denunciatory  voice  of  conscience,  before  we 
consent  to  regard  it  simply  as  a  means  to  an  in- 
finitely higher  end,  —  which  is  our  unity  with  all 
mankind.  The  inspiration  of  the  moral  sentiment, 
the  sentiment  of  selfhood,  is  so  powerful  within  us  ; 
it  is  so  sweet  to  feel  this  delicious  bosom  inmate 
disengage  itself  from  its  gross  carnal  envelope,  and 
come  forth  a  radiant  white-armed  Eve,  full-formed 
in  all  divine  vigor  and  beauty,  —  that  we  cannot 
help  clasping  it  to  our  bosoms  as  thenceforth  bone 
of  our  bone  and  flesh  of  our  flesh,  cheerfully  for- 
saking  for  it   father   and  mother,  or  all  we  have 


INTRODUCTION.  45 

traditionally  loved  and  traditionally  believed,  and 
cleaving  undismayed  to  its  fortunes  though  it  lead 
us  through  the  gloom  of  death  and  the  fires  of 
hell.  .  .  . 

"  Self-love  is  the  vital  atmosphere  of  morality, 
and  there  can  be  no  extrication  from  it  but  by 
honest  conflict  with  it,  —  conflict  if  need  be  even 
unto  death.  Some  men  have  been  more  grievously 
lacerated  in  this  conflict  than  others,  going  down 
to  their  graves  scourged  by  the  contempt  of  the 
proud  and  unthinking,  with  banners  once  so  lofty 
now  all  trailing  in  the  dust  of  men's  reproach.  But 
this  is  not  because  they  were  spiritually  any  worse 
than  other  men ;  probably  the  exact  contrary.  It 
is  only  because  they  had  fifty  times  the  ordinary 
amount  of  moral  or  self-righteous  force  to  start 
with,  and  it  could  only  become  spiritually  weak- 
ened and  overcome  by  this  terrific  personal  hu- 
miliation." ^ 

If  the  creature's  nature  were  anything  other 
than  the  mere  provisional  scafl'olding  it  is,  there 
would  be  no  need  of  extrication,  of  conflict,  of  the 
quickening  within  it  of  a  self  doomed  to  humilia- 
tion and  defeat.  In  that  case  there  might  be  no 
consciousness  of  self  at  all.  All  flesh  might  "  sen- 
sibly perceive  God  to  be  the  sole  life  of  the  uni- 
1  Substance  and  Shadow,  pp.  137-40. 


46  INTRODUCTION. 

verse.  But  were  this  so,  we  should  sit  Hke  stocks 
and  stones,  leaving  him  who  obviously  was  life  to 
the  exclusive  appropriation  and  enjoyment  of  it." 
On  the  other  hand,  we  might  imagine  ourselves 
endowed  with  a  prosperous  and  harmonious  self 
from  the  start,  and  creation  beginning  and  ending 
with  the  Garden  of  Eden,^  — "  a  state  of  blissful  in- 
fantile delight,  unperturbed  as  yet  by  those  fierce 
storms  of  the  intellect  which  are  soon  to  envelop 
and  sweep  it  away,  but  also  unvisited  by  a  single 
glimpse  of  that  divine  and  halcyon  calm  of  heart 
in  which  these  hideous  storms  will  finally  rock 
themselves  to  sleep.  Nothing  can  indeed  be  more 
remote  (except  in  pure  imagery)  from  distinctively 
human  attributes,  or  from  the  spontaneous  life  of 
man,  than  this  sleek  and  comely  Adamic  condi- 
tion, provided  it  should  turn  out  an  abiding  one ; 
because  man  in  that  case  would  prove  a  mere 
dimpled  nursling  of  the  skies,  without  ever  rising 
into  the  slightest  divine  communion  or  fellowship, 
without  ever  realizing  a  truly  divine  manhood  and 
dignity,  —  mere  unfermented  dough,  insipid  and 
impracticable.  .  .  .  He  would  have  mineral  body 
and  consequent  inertia,  no  doubt;   he  would  have 

^  Mr.  James,  following  Swedenborg,  often  calls  the  creature 
abstracted  from  moral  consciousness,  the  Adam ;  the  moral  con- 
sciousness being  the  Eve.  Homo  and  vir  are  terms  symbolizing 
the  same  distinction. 


INTRODUCTION.  4/ 

vegetable  form,  and  consequent  growth ;  he  would 
have  animal  life  and  consequent  motion,  —  but  he 
would  be  without  all  power  of  human  action,  be- 
cause he  would  lack  that  constant  permeation  and 
interpenetration  of  his  spirit  by  the  living  spirit  of 
God,  which  weaves  his  pallid  natural  annals  into 
the  purple  tissue  of  history,  and  separates  man 
from  Nature  by  all  the  plenitude  and  power  of 
incarnate  deity."  ^ 

But  the  consciousness  of  self  cannot  be  inno- 
cent and  prosperous.  Being,  as  it  is,  a  mere 
magic-lantern-phantom  cast  by  the  divine  love 
upon  essential  nothingness,  it  must  reveal  the  void 
on  which  it  is  based,  and  have  a  tragic  history,  if 
it  have  a  history  at  all.  The  experience  of  the 
working  out  of  the  tragedy  of  the  self  is  called  by 
our  author  sometimes  "  conscience,"  and  some- 
times "  religion." 

"  By  religion  I  mean  —  what  is  invariably  meant 
by  the  term  where  the  thing  itself  still  exists  — 
such  a  conscience  on  man's  part  of  a  forfeiture  of 
the  divine  favor,  as  perpetually  urges  him  to  make 
sacrifices  of  his  ease,  his  convenience,  his  wealth, 
and  if  need  be  his  life,  in  order  to  restore  himself, 
if  so  it  be  possible,  to  that  favor.     This  is  religion 

1  Christianity  the  Logic  of  Creation,  p.  120. 


48  INTRODUCTION. 

in  its  literal  form ;  natural  religion ;  religion  as  it 
stands  authenticated  by  the  universal  instincts  of 
the  race,  before  it  has  undergone  a  spiritual  con- 
version into  life,  and  while  claiming  still  a  purely- 
ritual  embodiment."^ 

1  Mr.  James  scorned  to  apply  the  word  religion  to  any  experi- 
ence whose  starting  point  was  not  pessimistic.  Our  modern  optim- 
ism made  him  complain  that  "  religion  m  the  old  virile  sense  of  the 
word  has  disappeared  from  sight  and  become  replaced  by  a  feeble 
Unitarian  sentimentality.  The  old  religion  involved  a  conscience 
of  the  profoundest  antagonism  between  God  and  the  worshipper, 
which  utterly  refused  to  be  placated  by  anything  short  of  an  un- 
conditional pledge  of  the  utmost  divine  mercy.  The  ancient  be- 
liever felt  himself  sheerly  unable  to  love  God,  or  do  anythmg  else 
towards  his  salvation,  were  it  only  the  lifting  of  a  finger.  To  un- 
love was  his  only  true  loving;  to  un-learn,  his  only  true  learning; 
to  un-do,  his  only  true  doing.  The  modern  religionist  is  at  once 
amused  and  amazed  at  these  curious  archaeological  begmnings  of 
his  own  history.  He  feels  towards  them  as  a  virtuoso  does  towards 
what  is  decidedly  rococo  in  fashion,  and  not  seldom  bestows  a  word 
of  munificent  Pharisaic  patronage  upon  them,  such  as  the  opulent 
Mr.  Ruskin  dispenses  to  uncouth  specimens  of  early  religious  art. 
He  has  not  the  slightest  conception  of  himself  as  a  spiritual  form 
inwardly  enlivened  by  all  God's  peace  and  innocence.  On  the  con- 
trary, he  feels  himself  to  be  a  strictly  moral  or  self-possessed  being, 
vivified  exclusively  by  his  own  action,  or  the  relations  he  volunta- 
rily assumes  with  respect  to  human  and  divine  law.  The  modern 
believer  aspires  to  be  a  saint;  the  ancient  one  abhorred  to  be  any- 
thing but  a  sinner.  The  former  looks  back,  accordingly,  to  some 
fancied  era  of  what  he  calls  conversion,  —  that  is,  when  he  passed 
from  death  to  life.  The  latter  was  blissfully  content  to  forget  him- 
self, and  looked  forward  exclusively  to  his  Lord's  promised  spiritual 
advent  in  all  the  forms  of  a  redeemed  nature.  The  one  is  an  abso- 
lutely changed  man,  no  longer  to  be  confounded  with  the  world, 
and  meet  for  the  divine  approbation.  The  other  was  a  totally  un- 
changed one,  only  more  dependent  than  he  ever  was  before  upon 


INTRODUCTION.  49 

"  Every  man  who  has  reached  even  his  intel- 
lectual teens  begins  to  suspect  this ;  begins  to  sus- 
pect that  life  is  no  farce ;  that  it  is  not  genteel 
comedy  even ;  that  it  flowers  and  fructifies  on  the 
contrary  out  of  the  profoundest  tragic  depths,  — 
the  depths  of  the  essential  dearth  in  which  its  sub- 
ject's roots  are  plunged.  .  .  .  The  natural  inherit- 
ance of  every  one  who  is  capable  of  spiritual 
life,  is  an  unsubdued  forest  where  the  wolf  howls 

the  unmitigated  divine  mercy.  The  one  feels  sure  of  going  to 
heaven  if  the  Lord  observes  the  distinctions  which  his  own  grace 
ordains  in  human  character.  The  other  felt  sure  of  going  to  hell 
unless  the  Lord  was  blessedly  indifferent  to  those  distinctions."  — 
Substance  and  Shadow,  pp.  14,  15. 

Again :  "  Religion  has  undergone  so  sheer  a  demoralization  since 
her  pure  and  holy  prime,  —  has  sunk  into  such  a  brazen  handmaid  to 
worldliness,  such  a  painted  and  bedizened  courtesan  and  street- 
walker, proffering  her  unstinted  favors  to  every  sentimental  fop, 
or  clerical  beau  diseur,  who  has  the  smallest  change  of  self-conceit 
in  his  pocket  wherewith  to  pay  for  them,  — that  one  finds  himself 
secretly  invoking  the  advent  of  some  grand  social  renovation  in 
order  to  blot  it  as  a  profession  out  of  remembrance,  and  leave  it 
extant  only  as  a  spiritual  life.  Religion  was  once  a  spiritual  life 
in  the  earth,  though  a  very  rude  and  terrible  one  ;  and  her  con- 
quests were  diligently  authenticated  by  the  divine  spirit.  Then  she 
meant  terror  and  amazement  to  all  devout  self-coinplacency  in 
man ;  then  she  meant  rebuke  and  denial  to  every  form  of  distinc- 
tively personal  hope  and  pretension  towards  God ;  then  she  meant 
discredit  and  death  to  every  breath  of  a  Pharisaic  or  Quaker 
temper  in  humanity,  by  which  a  man  could  be  led  to  boast  of  a 
'  private  spirit '  in  his  bosom,  giving  him  a  differential  character 
and  aspect  in  God's  sight  to  that  of  other  men,  especially  the 
great  and  holy  and  unconscious  mass  of  his  kind."  —  Secret  of 
Swedenborg,  p.  221. 

4 


5o  INTRODUCTION. 

and  every  obscene  bird  of  night  chatters.^  The 
only  vaHd  natural  superiority  I  can  claim  to  the 
animal,  lies  in  the  fact  that  I  have  conscie7ice  and 
he  has  not.  And  the  only  valid  moral  superiority 
I  can  claim  to  my  fellow-man  is,  that  I  am  more 
hearty  in  my  allegiance  to  it,  and  he  less  hearty. 
Thus  deeper  than  my  intellect,  deeper  than  my 
heart,  deeper  in  fact  than  aught  and  all  that  I  rec- 
ognize as  myself,  or  am  wont  to  call  emphatically 
vie,  is  this  dread  omnipotent  power  of  conscience, 
which  now  soothes  me  with  the  voice  and  nurses 
me  with  the  milk  of  its  tenderness,  as  the  mother 
soothes  and  nurses  her  child,  and  anon  scourges 
me  with  the  lash  of  its  indignation,  as  the  father 
scourges  his  refractory  heir. 

"  But  this  is  only  telling  half  the  story.  It  is 
very  true  that  conscience  is  the  sole  arbiter  of 
good  and  evil  to  man  ;  and  that  persons  of  a  literal 
and  superficial  cast  of  mind  —  persons  of  a  good 
hereditary  temperament  —  may  easily  fancy  them- 
selves in  spiritual  harmony  with  it,  or  persuade 
themselves  and  others  that  they  have  fully  satisfied 
every  claim  of  its  righteousness.  But  minds  of  a 
deeper  quality  soon  begin  to  suspect  that  the 
demands  of  conscience  are  not  so  easily  satisfied ; 
soon  discover  in  fact  that  it  is  a  ministration  of 
death  exclusively,  and  not  of  life,  to  which  they 

1  Substance  and  Shadow,  p.  75. 


INTR  OD  UC  TION.  5  I 

are  abandoning  themselves.  For  what  conscience 
inevitably  teaches  all  its  earnest  adepts  erelong  is, 
to  give  up  the  hopeless  efifort  to  reconcile  good 
and  evil  in  their  own  practice,  and  learn  to  identify 
themselves,  on  the  contrary,  with  the  evil  princi- 
ple alone,  while  they  assign  all  good  exclusively  to 
God.  Thus  no  man  of  a  sincere  and  honest  in- 
tellectual make  has  ever  set  himself  seriously  to 
cultivate  conscience  with  a  view  to  its  spiritual 
emoluments,  —  that  is,  with  a  view  to  placate  the 
divine  righteousness, — without  speedily  discover- 
ing that  every  such  hope  is  illusory  ,  that  peace 
flees  from  him  just  in  proportion  to  the  eagerness 
with  which  he  covets  it.  In  other  words,  no  man 
not  a  fool,  since  the  beginning  of  history,  has  ever 
deliberately  set  himself  *  to  eat  of  the  tree  of  the 
knowledge  of  good  and  evil,'  —  that  is,  to  prosecute 
his  moral  instincts  until  Jie  should  become  inwardly 
assured  of  God's  personal  complacency  in  him,  — 
without  finding  death  and  not  life  to  his  soul ; 
without  his  inward  and  spiritual  obliquity  being 
sooner  or  later  made  to  abound  in  the  exact  ratio 
of  his  moral  or  outward  rectitude.  I  have  no  idea, 
of  course,  that  a  man  may  not  be  beguiled  by  the 
insinuating  breath  of  sense  into  believing  himself 
spiritually,  or  in  the  depths,  just  what  he  appears 
to  be  morally,  or  in  the  shallows.  Vast  numbers  of 
persons,  indeed,  are  to  be  found  in  every  commu- 


52  INTRODUCTION. 

nity,  who,  having  as  yet  attained  to  no  spiritual  in- 
sight or  understanding,  are  entirely  content  with 
—  nay,  proud  of — the  moral  'purple  and  fine 
linen '  with  which  they  are  daily  decked  out  in  the 
favorable  esteem  of  their  friends,  and  are  mean- 
while at  hearty  peace  with  themselves.  All  this 
in  fact  is  strictly  inevitable  to  our  native  and  culti- 
vated fatuity  in  spiritual  things ;  but  I  am  not  here 
concerned  with  the  fact  in  the  way  either  of  denial 
or  of  confirmation.  What  I  here  mean  specifically 
to  say  is,  that  every  one  in  whom,  to  use  a  common 
locution  of  Swedenborg,  '  the  spiritual  degree  of 
the  mind  has  been  opened,'  finds  conscience  no 
friend,  but  an  impassioned  foe  to  his  moral  right- 
eousness or  complacency  in  himself,  and  hence  to 
his  personal  repose  in  God.  ...  A  stream  cannot 
mount  above  its  source,  and  .  .  .  when  I  earnestly 
aspire  to  fulfil  the  divine  law,  —  when  I  earnestly 
strive  after  moral  or  personal  excellence,  —  my  aim 
unquestionably  is  to  lift  myself  above  the  level  of 
human  nature,  or  attain  to  a  place  in  the  divine 
regard  unshared  by  the  average  of  my  kind ;  un- 
shared by  the  liar,  the  thief,  the  adulterer,  the 
murderer.  But  the  same  law  which  discounte- 
nances false-witness,  theft,  adultery,  and  murder 
binds  me  also  not  to  covet,  —  that  is,  not  to  desire  for 
myself  what  other  men  do  not  enjoy  ;  so  that  the  law 
which  I  fondly  imagined  was  designed  to  give  me 


INTRODUCTION.  53 

life  turns  out  a  subtle  ministry  of  death,  and  in  the 
very  crisis  of  my  moral  exaltation  fills  me  with  the 
profoundest  spiritual  humiliation  and  despair.  It 
is  an  instinct  doubtless  of  the  divine  life  in  me  to 
hate  false-witness,  theft,  adultery,  and  murder,  and 
actually  to  avert  myself  from  these  evils  whenever 
I  am  naturally  tempted  to  do  them.  But  then  I 
must  hate  them  for  their  own  sake  exclusively,  or 
because  of  their  contrariety  to  infinite  goodness 
and  truth,  and  not  with  a  base  view  to  tighten  my 
hold  upon  God's  personal  approbation.  I  grossly 
pervert  the  spirit  of  the  law,  and  betray  its  infinite 
majesty  to  shame,  if  I  suppose  it  capable  of  ratify- 
ing in  any  degree  my  private  and  personal  cupidity 
towards  God,  or  lending  even  a  moment's  sanction 
to  the  altogether  frivolous  and  odious  separation 
which  I  devoutly  hope  to  compass  between  myself 
and  other  men  in  his  sight. 

"  The  entire  historic  function  of  conscience  has 
been  to  operate  an  efi"ectual  check  upon  our  gigan- 
tic natural  pride  and  cupidity  in  spiritual  things, 
by  avouching  a  total  contrariety  between  God 
and  ourselves,  so  long  as  we  remain  indifferent 
to  the  truth  of  our  essential  society,  fellowship, 
or  equality  with  our  kind,  and  are  moved  only  by 
selfish  or  personal  considerations  in  the  devout 
overtures  we  make  to  the  divine  regard.  .  .  .  The 
only  respect  it  ever  pays  to  the   private  votary  is 


54  INTRODUCTION. 

to  convince  him  of  sin  through  a  conviction  of 
God's  wholly  impersonal  justice,  .  ,  .  and  make 
him  frankly  disavow  every  title  to  the  divine  es- 
teem which  is  not  quite  equally  shared  by  pub- 
lican and  harlot."  ^ 

Selfhood  and  conscience,  then,  or  "  morality 
and  religion,  together,  constitute  the  subject-earth 
of  self-love,  which  revolves  now  in  light,  now  in 
shade,  —  morality  being  the  illuminated  side  of  that 
love,  religion  its  obscured  side ;  the  one  constitu- 
ting the  splendor  of  its  day,  the  other  the  darkness 
of  its  night.  Morality  is  the  summer  lustihood  and 
luxuriance  of  self-love,  clothing  its  mineral  ribs 
with  vegetable  grace,  permeating  its  rigid  trunk 
with  sap,  decorating  its  gnarled  limbs  with  foliage, 
glorifying  every  reluctant  virgin  bud  and  every 
modest  wifely  blossom  into  rich,  ripe  motherly 
fruit.  Religion  is  the  icy  winter  which  blights  this 
summer  fertility,  which  arrests  the  ascent  of  its 
vivifying  sap,  and  humbles  its  superb  life  to  the 
ground,  in  the  interests  of  a  spring  that  shall  be 
perennial,  and  of  autumns  bursting  with  imperish- 
able fruit.  In  other  words,  religion  has  no  sub- 
stantive force.  Her  sole  errand  on  earth  has  been 
to  dog  the  footsteps  of  morality,  to  humble  the 
pride  of  selfhood  which  man  derives  from  nature, 
and  so  soften  his  interiors  to  the  reception  of 
1  Secret  of  Swedenborg,  pp.  161-65. 


INTR  OD  UC  TION.  5  5 

divine  truth,  as  that  truth  shall  stand  fulfilled  in  the 
organization  of  human  equality  or  fellowship."  ^ 

"  Self-conceit  and  self-reproach,  pride  and  peni- 
tence, thus  make  up  the  fever  and  the  chill  into 
which  that  great  intermittent,  which  we  call  our 
moral  and  religious  experience,  ordinarily  resolves 
itself."  My  father  seems  in  his  early  years  to  have 
had  an  unusually  lively  and  protracted  visitation  of 
this  malady,  and  his  philosophy  indeed  is  but  the 
statement  of  his  cure.  In  the  autobiographic 
pages  to  be  found  further  on,  there  is  a  full  ac- 
count of  his  boyish  evolution  in  this  respect.  And 
here  and  there  in  his  other  writings  we  get  glimp- 
ses of  later  states  of  mind  which  it  will  be  profit- 
able now  to  transcribe.     Here  is  one  of  them : 

"  I  had  never  for  a  moment  intellecUially  realized 
my  moral  consciousness  to  be  that  mere  steward 
or  servant  of  the  divine  inheritance  in  our  nature 
which  Swedenborg  showed  it  to  be.  On  the  con- 
trary, with  the  intellect,  and  in  spite  of  the  heart's 
misgiving,  I  had  always  quietly  allowed  it  to  be 
the  undeniable  lord  of  the  inheritance,  and  beheld 
it  accordingly  whipping  the  men-servants  and  the 
maid-servants  at  its  pleasure,  without  a  suspicion. 
Far  from  supposing  my  natural  selfhood  or  pro- 
priuni  to  constitute  a  strictly  negative  token,  an 

^  Substance  and  Shadow,  p.  10. 


56  INTRODUCTION. 

essentially  inverse  attestation,  of  God's  spiritual  and 
infinite  presence  in  our  nature,  I  habitually  viewed 
it  as  the  Church  taught  me  to  view  it,  —  that  is, 
as  the  only  direct  and  positive  manifestation  of  his 
power ;  and  my  religious  life  accordingly  became 
one  of  incessant  conflict  and  perturbation. 

"  How  could  it  have  been  otherwise?  Having  as 
I  supposed  a  purely  moral  status  by  creation, — 
never  dreaming  that  my  selfhood  possessed  only 
a  formal  or  subjective  validity,  —  I  attributed  to 
myself  an  objective  or  substantial  reality  in  God's 
sight,  and  of  course  sought  to  attract  his  approba- 
tion to  me  by  the  unswerving  pursuit  of  moral  ex- 
cellence, by  studiously  cultivating  every  method 
of  personal  purity.  It  was  all  in  vain.  The  more 
I  strove  to  indue  myself  in  actual  righteousness, 
the  wider  gaped  the  jaws  of  hell  within  me ;  the 
fouler  grew  its  fetid  breath,  A  conviction  of  in- 
ward defilement  so  sheer  took  possession  of  me, 
that  death  seemed  better  than  life.  I  soon  found 
my  conscience,  once  launched  in  this  insane  career, 
acquiring  so  infernal  an  edge,  that  I  could  no 
longer  indulge  myself  in  the  most  momentary 
deviation  from  an  absurd  and  pedantic  literal  rec- 
titude; could  not,  for  example,  bestow  a  sulky 
glance  upon  my  wife,  a  cross  word  upon  my  child, 
or  a  petulant  objurgation  on  my  cook,  without 
tumbling   into  an   instant  inward  frenzy  of  alarm 


INTRODUCTION.  57 

lest  I  should  thereby  have  provoked  God's  per- 
sonal malignity  to  me.  There  is  indeed  no  way  of 
avoiding  spiritual  results  so  belittling,  but  by  ceas- 
ing to  regard  morality  as  a  direct,  and  looking 
upon  it  as  an  inverse,  image  of  God's  true  life  in 
us.  If  my  moral  consciousness  constitute  the  true 
and  eternal  bond  of  intercourse  between  me  and 
God ;  that  is  to  say,  if  he  attribute  to  me  all  the 
good  and  evil  which  I  in  my  insane  pride  attribute 
to  myself,  —  then  it  will  be  impossible  for  me  to 
avoid  all  eternity  either  a  most  conceited  and  dis- 
gusting conviction  of  his  personal  complacency 
in  me,  or  else  a  shuddering  apprehension  of  his 
personal  ill-will.  If  I  have  a  naturally  complacent 
temper,  my  religious  life  will  reflect  it,  and  array 
me  spiritually  in  all  manner  of  nauseous  Phari- 
saism and  flunkeyism.  If  I  have  what  is  called 
a  *  morbid '  natural  temperament,  on  the  other 
hand,  leading  me  to  self-distrust  and  self-depre- 
ciation, my  religious  life  will  deepen  these  things 
into  despair,  by  making  my  self-condemnation  con- 
fess itself  a  feeble  reflection  of  God's  profounder 
vindictiveness."  ^ 

In  a  couple  of  long  passages  of  his  latest  pub- 
lished work,  he  tells  as  follows  of  the  manner  in 
which  he  became  acquainted  with  the  writings  of 
Swedenborg,  and  began  to  get  relief:  — 
^  Substance  and  Shadow,  pp.  125-27. 


58  INTR  OD  UC  TION. 

"  In  the  spring  of  1844  I  was  living  with  my 
family  in  the  neighborhood  of  Windsor,  England, 
much  absorbed  in  the  study  of  the  Scriptures. 
Two  or  three  years  before  this  period  I  had  made 
an  important  discovery,  as  I  fancied ;  namely, 
that  the  book  of  Genesis  was  not  intended  to  throw 
a  direct  light  upon  our  natural  or  race  history,  but 
was  an  altogether  mystical  or  symbolic  record  of 
the  laws  of  God's  spiritual  creation  and  provi- 
dence. I  wrote  a  course  of  lectures  in  exposition 
of  this  idea,  and  delivered  them  to  good  audiences 
in  New  York.  The  preparation  of  these  lectures, 
while  it  did  much  to  confirm  me  in  the  impression 
that  I  had  made  an  interesting  discovery  and  one 
which  would  extensively  modify  theology,  con- 
vinced me,  however,  that  a  much  more  close  and 
studious  application  of  my  idea  than  I  had  yet 
given  to  the  illustration  of  the  details  of  the  sacred 
letter  was  imperatively  needed.  During  my  resi- 
dence abroad,  accordingly,  I  never  tired  in  my 
devotion  to  this  aim ;  and  my  success  seemed  so 
flattering  at  length,  that  I  hoped  to  be  finally  quali- 
fied to  contribute  a  not  insignificant  mite  to  the 
sum  of  man's  highest  knowledge.  I  remember  I 
felt  especially  hopeful  in  the  prosecution  of  my 
task  all  the  time  I  was  at  Windsor;  my  health 
was  good,  my  spirits  cheerful,  and  the  pleasant 
scenery  of  the  great   Park   and   its  neighborhood 


INTRODUCTION.  59 

furnished  us  a  constant  temptation  to  long  walks 
and  drives. 

"  One  day,  however,  towards  the  close  of  May, 
having  eaten  a  comfortable  dinner,  I  remained  sit- 
ting at  the  table  after  the  family  had  dispersed, 
idly  gazing  at  the  embers  in  the  grate,  thinking  of 
nothing,  and  feeling  only  the  exhilaration  incident 
to  a  good  digestion,  when  suddenly  —  in  a  light- 
ning-flash as  it  were  — '  fear  came  upon  me,  and 
trembling,  which  made  all  my  bones  to  shake.' 
To  all  appearance  it  was  a  perfectly  insane  and 
abject  terror,  without  ostensible  cause,  and  only  to 
be  accounted  for,  to  my  perplexed  imagination, 
by  some  damned  shape  squatting  invisible  to  me 
within  the  precincts  of  the  room,  and  raying  out 
from  his  fetid  personality  influences  fatal  to  life. 
The  thing  had  not  lasted  ten  seconds  before  I  felt 
myself  a  wreck;  that  is,  reduced  from  a  state  of 
firm,  vigorous,  joyful  manhood  to  one  of  almost 
helpless  infancy.  The  only  self-control  I  was  capa- 
ble of  exerting  was  to  keep  my  seat.  I  felt  the 
greatest  desire  to  run  incontinently  to  the  foot  of 
the  stairs  and  shout  for  help  to  my  wife,  —  to  run 
to  the  roadside  even,  and  appeal  to  the  public  to 
protect  me ;  but  by  an  immense  effort  I  controlled 
these  frenzied  impulses,  and  determined  not  to 
budge  from  my  chair  till  I  had  recovered  my  lost 
self-possession.     This  purpose  I  held  to  for  a  good 


60  INTRODUCTION. 

long  hour,  as  I  reckoned  time,  beat  upon  mean- 
while by  an  ever-growing  tempest  of  doubt,  anx- 
iety, and  despair,  with  absolutely  no  relief  from 
any  truth  I  had  ever  encountered  save  a  most  pale 
and  distant  glimmer  of  the  divine  existence,  when  I 
resolved  to  abandon  the  vain  struggle,  and  commu- 
nicate without  more  ado  what  seemed  my  sudden 
burden  of  inmost,  implacable  unrest  to  my  wife. 

"  Now,  to  make  a  long  story  short,  this  ghastly 
condition  of  mind  continued  with  me,  with  gradu- 
ally lengthening  intervals  of  relief,  for  two  years, 
and  even  longer.  I  consulted  eminent  physicians, 
who  told  me  that  I  had  doubtless  overworked  my 
brain,  —  an  evil  for  which  no  remedy  existed  in 
medicine,  but  only  in  time  and  patience,  and 
growth  into  improved  physical  conditions.  They 
all  recommended  by  way  of  hygiene  a  resort  to  the 
water-cure  treatment,  a  life  in  the  open  air,  cheer- 
ful company,  and  so  forth,  and  thus  quietly  and 
skilfully  dismissed  me  to  my  own  spiritual  medica- 
tion. At  first,  when  I  began  to  feel  a  half-hour's 
respite  from  acute  mental  anguish,  the  bottomless 
mystery  of  my  disease  completely  fascinated  me. 
The  more,  however,  I  worried  myself  with  specula- 
tions about  the  cause  of  it,  the  more  the  mystery 
deepened,  and  the  deeper  also  grew  my  instinct  of 
resentment  at  what  seemed  so  needless  an  interfer- 
ence with  my  personal  liberty.    I  went  to  a  famous 


INTRO  D  UCTION.  6 1 

water-cure,  which  did  nothing  towards  curing  my 
malady  but  enrich  my  memory  with  a  few  morbid 
specimens  of  English  insularity  and  prejudice; 
but  it  did  much  to  alleviate  it  by  familiarizing  my 
senses  with  the  exquisite  and  endless  charm  of 
English  landscape,  and  giving  me  my  first  full 
rational  relish  of  what  may  be  called  England's 
pastoral  beauty.  To  be  sure,  I  had  spent  a  few 
days  in  Devonshire  when  I  was  young;  but  my 
delight  then  was  simple  enthusiasm,  was  helpless 
aesthetic  intoxication  in  fact.  The  *  cure '  was 
situated  in  a  much  less  lovely  but  still  beautiful 
country,  on  the  borders  of  a  famous  park,  to 
both  of  which,  moreover,  it  gave  us  unlimited 
right  of  possession  and  enjoyment.  At  least  this 
was  the  way  it  always  struck  my  imagination.  The 
thoroughly  disinterested  way  the  English  have  of 
looking  at  their  own  hills  and  vales,  the  indiffer- 
ent, contemptuous,  and  as  it  were  disowning  mood 
they  habitually  put  on  towards  the  most  ravishing 
pastoral  loveliness  man's  sun  anywhere  shines  upon, 
gave  me  always  the  sense  of  being  a  discoverer 
of  these  things,  and  of  a  consequent  right  to  enter 
upon  their  undisputed  possession.  At  all  events, 
the  rich  light  and  shade  of  English  landscape,  the 
gorgeous  cloud-pictures  that  forever  dimple  and 
diversify  her  fragrant  and  palpitating  bosom,  have 
awakened  a  tenderer  chord  in  me  than  I  have  ever 


62  INTRODUCTION. 

felt  at  home  almost ;  and  time  and  again  while 
living  at  this  dismal  water-cure,  and  listening  to  its 
endless  '  strife  of  tongues  '  about  diet,  and  regimen, 
and  disease,  and  politics,  and  parties,  and  persons, 
I  have  said  to  myself,  Tlie  curse  of  viankind,  that 
which  keeps  our  manhood  so  little  and  so  depraved, 
is  its  sense  of  selfhood,  and  the  absurd,  abominable 
opinionativeness  it  engenders.  How  sweet  it  zvoidd 
be  to  find  oneselj  no  longer  man,  bnt  one  of  those  in- 
nocent and  ignorant  sheep  pasturing  npon  that  placid 
hillside,  and  drinking  in  eternal  dew  and  freshness 
from  Nature's  lavish  bosom  ! 

"  But  let  me  hasten  to  the  proper  upshot  of  this 
incident.  My  stay  at  the  water-cure,  unpromising 
as  it  was  in  point  of  physical  results,  made  me  con- 
scious erelong  of  a  most  important  change  operat- 
ing in  the  sphere  of  my  will  and  understanding.  It 
struck  me  as  very  odd,  soon  after  my  breakdown, 
that  I  should  feel  no  longing  to  resume  the  work 
which  had  been  interrupted  by  it;  and  from  that 
day  to  this  (nearly  thirty-five  years)  I  have  never 
once  cast  a  retrospective  glance,  even  of  curi- 
osity, at  the  immense  piles  of  manuscript  which 
had  erewhile  so  absorbed  me.  I  suppose  if  any 
one  had  designated  me  previous  to  that  event  as 
an  earnest  seeker  after  truth,  I  should  myself  have 
seen  nothing  unbecoming  in  the  appellation.  But 
now,  within  two  or  three  months  of  my  catastro-. 


INTRODUCTIOiY.  63 

phe,  I  felt  sure  I  had  never  caught  a  gHmpse  of 
truth.  My  present  consciousness  was  exactly  that 
of  an  utter  and  plenary  destitution  of  truth.  In- 
deed, an  ugly  suspicion  had  more  than  once  forced 
itself  upon  me  that  I  had  never  really  wished  the 
truth,  but  only  to  ventilate  my  own  ability  in  dis- 
covering it.  I  was  getting  sick  to  death  in  fact 
with  a  sense  of  my  downright  intellectual  poverty 
and  dishonesty.  My  studious  mental  activity  had 
served  manifestly  to  base  a  mere  *  castle  in  the 
air ;  '  and  the  castle  had  vanished  in  a  brief  bitter 
moment  of  time,  leaving  not  a  wrack  behind.  I 
never  felt  again  the  most  passing  impulse,  even,  to 
look  where  it  stood,  having  done  with  it  forever. 
Truth,  indeed  !  How  should  a  beggar  like  me  be 
expected  to  discover  it?  How  should  any  man  of 
woman  born  pretend  to  such  ability?  Truth  must 
reveal  itself  if  it  would  be  known ;  and  even  then 
how  imperfectly  known  at  best !  For  truth  is  God, 
the  omniscient  and  omnipotent  God  ;  and  who  shall 
pretend  to  comprehend  that  great  and  adorable 
perfection?  And  yet  who  that  aspires  to  the 
name  of  man,  would  not  cheerfully  barter  all  he 
knows  of  life  for  a  bare  glimpse  of  the  hem  of  its 
garment? 

"I  was  calling  one  day  upon  a  friend  (since  de- 
ceased) who  lived  in  the  vicinity  of  the  water-cure, 
—  a  lady  of  rare  qualities  of  heart  and  mind,  and 


64  introduction: 

of  singular  personal  loveliness  as  well,  —  who  de- 
sired to  know  what  had  brought  me  to  the  water- 
cure.  After  I  had  done  telling  her  in  substance 
what  I  have  told  you,  she  replied :  *  It  is,  then, 
very  much  as  I  had  ventured  from  two  or  three 
previous  things  you  have  said,  to  suspect:  you 
are  undergoing  what  Swedenborg  calls  a  vastation; 
and  though,  naturally  enough,  you  yourself  are 
despondent  or  even  despairing  about  the  issue,  I 
cannot  help  taking  an  altogether  hopeful  view  of 
your  prospects.'  In  expressing  my  thanks  for 
her  encouraging  words,  I  remarked  that  I  was  not 
at  all  familiar  with  the  Swedenborgian  technics, 
and  that  I  should  be  extremely  happy  if  she  would 
follow  up  her  flattering  judgment  of  my  condition 
by  turning  into  plain  English  the  contents  of  the 
very  handsome  Latin  word  she  had  used.  To  this 
she  again  modestly  replied,  that  she  only  read 
Swedenborg  as  an  amateur,  and  was  ill-qualified 
to  expound  his  philosophy ;  but  there  could  be  no 
doubt  about  its  fundamental  postulate,  which  was, 
that  a  new  birth  for  man,  both  in  the  individual 
and  the  universal  realm,  is  the  secret  of  the  Divine 
creation  and  providence ;  that  the  other  world,  ac- 
cording to  Swedenborg,  furnishes  the  true  sphere 
of  man's  spiritual  or  individual  being,  the  real  and 
immortal  being  he  has  in  God ;  and  he  represents 
this  world,  consequently,  as  furnishing  only  a  pre- 


INTRODUCTION.  65 

liminary  theatre  of  his  natural  formation  or  exist- 
ence in  subordination  thereto,  —  so  making  the 
question  of  human  regeneration,  both  in  grand  and 
in  httle,  the  capital  problem  of  philosophy;  that, 
without  pretending  to  dogmatize,  she  had  been 
struck  with  the  philosophic  interest  of  my  narra- 
tive in  this  point  of  view,  and  had  used  the  word 
vastation  to  characterize  one  of  the  stages  of  the 
regenerative  process,  as  she  had  found  it  described 
by  Swedenborg.  And  then,  finally,  my  excellent 
friend  went  on  to  outline  for  me,  in  a  very  inter- 
esting manner,  her  conception  of  Swedenborg's 
entire  doctrine  on  the  subject. 

"  Her  account  of  it,  as  I  found  on  a  subsequent 
study  of  Swedenborg,  was  neither  quite  as  exact 
nor  quite  as  comprehensive  as  the  facts  required ; 
but  at  all  events  I  was  glad  to  discover  that  any 
human  being  had  so  much  even  as  proposed  to 
shed  the  light  of  positive  knowledge  upon  the 
soul's  history,  or  bring  into  rational  relief  the 
alternate  dark  and  bright  or  infernal  and  celes- 
tial phases  of  its  finite  constitution.  For  I  had 
an  immediate  hope,  amounting  to  an  almost  pro- 
phetic instinct,  of  finding  in  the  attempt,  however 
rash,  some  diversion  to  my  cares ;  and  I  determined 
instantly  to  run  up  to  London  and  procure  a  couple 
of  Swedenborg's  volumes,  of  which,  if  I  should  not 
be  allowed  on  sanitary  grounds  absolutely  to  read 

5 


66  INTRODUCTION. 

them,  I  might  at  any  rate  turn  over  the  leaves,  and 
so  catch  a  satisfying  savor,  or  at  least  an  appetiz- 
ing flavor,  of  the  possible  relief  they  might  in  some 
better  day  afford  to  my  poignant  need.  From  the 
huge  mass  of  tomes  placed  by  the  bookseller  on 
the  counter  before  me,  I  selected  two  of  the  least 
in  bulk, — the  treatise  on  the  '  Divine  Love  and  Wis- 
dom,' and  that  on  the  '  Divine  Providence.'  I  gave 
them,  after  I  brought  them  home,  many  a  random 
but  eager  glance ;  but  at  last  my  interest  in  them 
grew  so  frantic  under  this  tantalizing  process  of 
reading,  that  I  resolved,  in  spite  of  the  doctors, 
that  instead  of  standing  any  longer  shivering  on 
the  brink,  I  would  boldly  plunge  into  the  stream, 
and  ascertain,  once  for  all,  to  what  undiscovered 
sea  its  waters  might  bear  me. 

"  I  read  from  the  first  with  palpitating  interest. 
My  heart  divined,  even  before  my  intelligence  was 
prepared  to  do  justice  to  the  books,  the  unequalled 
amount  of  truth  to  be  found  in  them.  Imagine  a 
fever  patient,  sufficiently  restored  of  his  malady  to 
be  able  to  think  of  something  beside  himself,  sud- 
denly transported  where  the  free  airs  of  heaven 
blow  upon  him,  and  the  sound  of  running  waters 
refreshes  his  jaded  senses ;  and  you  have  a  feeble 
image  of  my  delight  in  reading.  Or,  better  still, 
imagine  a  subject  of  some  petty  despotism  con- 
demned to  die,  and  with  (what  is  more  and  worse) 


INTRODUCTION.  6/ 

a  sentiment  of  death  pervading  all  his  conscious- 
ness, lifted  by  a  sudden  miracle  into  felt  harmony 
with  universal  man,  and  filled  to  the  brim  with  the 
sentiment  of  indestructible  life  instead ;  and  you 
will  have  a  true  picture  of  my  emancipated  condi- 
tion. For  while  these  remarkable  books  familiar- 
ized me  with  the  angelic  conception  of  the  Divine 
being  and  providence,  they  gave  me  at  the  same 
time  the  amplest  rationale  I  could  have  desired 
of  my  own  particular  suffering,  as  inherent  in  the 
profound  unconscious  death  I  bore  about  in  my 
propriiim  or  selfhood."  ^ 

"  I  had  always,  from  childhood,  conceived  of  the 
Creator  as  bearing  an  outside  relation  to  the  crea- 
ture, and  had  attributed  to  the  latter,  consequently, 
the  power  of  provoking  his  unmeasured  hostility. 
Although  these  crude  traditional  views  had  been 
much  modified  by  subsequent  reflection,  I  had 
nevertheless  on  the  whole  been  in  the  habit  of  as- 
cribing to  the  Creator,  so  far  as  my  own  life  and 
actions  were  concerned,  an  outside  discernment 
of  the  most  jealous  scrutiny,  and  had  accordingly 
put  the  greatest  possible  alertness  into  his  service 
and  worship,  until  my  will,  as  you  have  seen,  — 
thoroughly  fagged  out  as  it  were  with  the  formal, 
heartless,  endless  task  of  conciliating  a  stony- 
hearted Deity,  —  actually  collapsed.  This  was  a 
^  Society  the  Redeemed  Form  of  Man,  pp.  43-54. 


68  INTRODUCTION. 

catastrophe  far  more  tragic  to  my  feelings,  and  far 
more  revolutionary  in  its  intellectual  results,  than 
the  actual  violation  of  any  mere  precept  of  the 
moral  law  could  be.  It  was  the  practical  abro- 
gation of  the  law  itself,  through  the  unexpected 
moral  inertness  of  the  subject.  It  was  to  my  feel- 
ing not  only  an  absolute  decease  of  my  moral  or 
voluntary  power,  but  a  shuddering  recoil  from  my 
conscious  activity  in  that  line.  It  was  an  actual 
acute  loathing  of  the  moral  pretension  itself  as  so 
much  downright  charlatanry.  No  idiot  was  ever 
more  incompetent,  practically,  to  the  conduct  of 
life  than  I,  at  that  trying  period,  felt  myself  to  be. 
It  cost  me,  in  f*act,  as  much  effort  to  go  out  for  a 
walk,  or  to  sleep  in  a  strange  bed,  as  it  would  an 
ordinary  man  to  plan  a  campaign  or  write  an  epic 
poem.  I  have  told  you  how,  in  looking  out  of  my 
window  at  the  time  at  a  flock  of  silly  sheep  which 
happened  to  be  grazing  in  the  green  park  oppo- 
site, I  used  to  envy  them  their  blissful,  stupid  igno- 
rance of  any  law  higher  than  their  nature,  their 
deep  unconsciousness  of  self,  their  innocence  of 
all  private  personality  and  purpose,  their  intense 
moral  incapacity,  in  short,  and  indifference.  I 
would  freely  —  nay,  gladly  —  have  bartered  the 
world  at  the  moment  for  one  breath  of  the  spiritual 
innocence  which  the  benign  creatures  outwardly 
pictured  or  stood  for  to  my  imagination ;  and  all 


INTRODUCTION.  69 

the  virtue,  or  moral  righteousness,  consequently, 
that  ever  illustrated  our  specific  human  personality- 
seemed  simply  foul  and  leprous  in  comparison 
with  the  deep  Divine  possibilities  and  promise  of 
our  common  nature,  as  these  stood  symbolized  to 
my  spiritual  sight  in  all  the  gentler  human  types 
of  the  merely  animate  world.  There  seemed,  for 
instance,  —  lustrously  represented  to  my  inward 
sense,  —  a  far  more  heavenly  sweetness  in  the  soul 
of  a  patient,  overdriven  cab-horse,  or  misused  cad- 
ger's donkey,  than  in  all  the  voluminous  calendar 
of  Romish  and  Protestant  hagiology,  which,  sooth 
to  say,  seemed  to  me,  in  contrast  with  it,  nothing 
short  of  infernal. 

"  You  may  easily  imagine,  then,  with  what  relish 
my  heart  opened  to  the  doctrine  I  found  in  these 
most  remarkable  books,  of  the  sheer  and  abject 
phenomena liiy  of  selfhood  in  man ;  and  with  what 
instant  alacrity  my  intellect  shook  its  canvas  free 
to  catch  every  breeze  of  that  virgin,  unexplored 
sea  of  Being,  to  which  this  doctrine,  for  the  first 
time,  furnished  me  the  clew.  Up  to  this  very 
period  I  had  lived  in  the  cheerful  faith,  nor  ever 
felt  the  slightest  shadow  of  misgiving  about  it,  — 
any  more,  I  venture  to  say,  than  you  at  this  mo- 
ment feel  a  shadow  of  similar  misgiving  in  your 
own  mind,  —  that  my  being  or  substance  lay  abso- 
lutely in   myself,  was    in   fact   identical  with   the 


70  INTRODUCTION. 

various  limitations  implied  in  that  most  fallacious 
but  still  unsuspected  quantity.  To  be  sure,  I  had 
no  doubt  that  this  being  or  self  of  mine  (whether 
actually  burdened,  or  not  burdened,  with  its  limita- 
tions I  did  not  stop  to  inquire,  but  unquestionably 
with  a  capacity  of  any  amount  of  burdensome 
limitation)  came  originally  as  a  gift  from  the  hand 
of  God;  but  I  had  just  as  little  doubt  that  the 
moment  the  gift  had  left  God's  hand,  or  fell  into 
my  conscious  possession,  it  became  as  essentially 
independent  of  him  in  all  spiritual  or  subjective  re- 
gards as  the  soul  of  a  child  is  of  its  earthly  father, 
however  much  in  material  or  objective  regards 
it  might  be  expedient  for  me  still  to  submit  to  his 
external  police.  My  moral  conscience,  too,  lent 
its  influence  to  the  same  profound  illusion ;  for 
all  the  precepts  of  the  moral  law  being  objectively 
so  good  and  real,  and  intended  in  the  view  of 
an  unenlightened  conscience  to  make  men  right- 
eous in  the  sight  of  God,  I  could  never  have  sup- 
posed, even  had  I  been  tempted  on  independent 
grounds  to  doubt  my  own  spiritual  or  subjective 
reality,  that  so  palpably  divine  a  law  contem- 
plated, or  even  tolerated,  a  wholly  infirm  and  fal- 
lacious subject;  much  less  that  it  was,  in  fact, 
altogether  devised  for  the  reproof,  condemnation, 
and  humiliation  of  such  a  subject.  I  had  no  mis- 
giving, therefore,  as  to  the  manifest  purpose  of  the 


INTRODUC  TION.  7 1 

law.  The  divine  intent  of  it  at  least  was  as  clear 
to  me  as  it  ever  had  been  to  the  Jew,  —  namely,  to 
serve  as  a  ministry  of  plain  moral  life  or  actual 
righteousness  among  men,  so  constructing  an  ever- 
lasting heaven  out  of  men's  warring  and  divided 
personalities  :  and  not  at  all,  as  the  apostles  taught, 
a  ministry  of  death,  to  convince  those  who  stood 
approved  by  it  of  siN,  thereby  shutting  up  all  men, 
good  and  evil  alike,  but  especially  the  good,  to 
unlimited  dependence  upon  the  sheer  and  mere 
mercy  of  God. 

"  It  was  impossible  for  me,  after  what  I  have  told 
you,  to  hold  this  audacious  faith  in  selfhood  any 
longer.  When  I  sat  down  to  dinner  on  that  mem- 
orable chilly  afternoon  in  Windsor,  I  held  it  serene 
and  unweakened  by  the  faintest  breath  of  doubt ; 
before  I  rose  from  table,  it  had  inwardly  shrivelled 
to  a  cinder.  One  moment  I  devoutly  thanked 
God  for  the  inappreciable  boon  of  selfhood;  the 
next,  that  inappreciable  boon  seemed  to  me  the 
one  thing  damnable  on  earth,  seemed  a  literal  nest 
of  hell  within  my  own  entrails."  ^ 

The  reader  who  shall  have  persevered  as  far  as 
this,  is  now  well  emerged  from  the  apriori  logical 
atmosphere    in  which  our  quotations   concerning 

'  Society  the  Redeemed  Form  of  Man,  pp.  70-74.  These  pages 
are  headed,  "  My  Moral  Death  and  Burial." 


72  INTRODUCTION. 

the  creative  process  began.  He  sees  that  those 
cold  accounts  were  but  a  garb,  a  vehicle  of  intro- 
duction to  the  intellect,  of  experiences  of  the  heart 
of  the  most  living  kind.  He  sees,  if  he  be  of  a 
generalizing  turn  of  mind,  that  Mr.  James  was  one 
member  of  that  band  of  saints  and  mystics,  whose 
rare  privilege  it  has  been,  by  the  mere  example 
and  recital  of  their  own  bosom-experience,  to  pre- 
vent religion  from  becoming  a  fossil  conventional- 
ism, and  to  keep  it  forever  alive.  The  experience 
in  question  has  always  been  an  acute  despair,  pass- 
ing over  into  an  equally  acute  optimism,  through  a 
passion  of  renunciation  of  the  self  and  surrender  to 
the  higher  power.  Doubtless  it  would  be  easy 
enough  to  muster  pages  of  quotations  from  spiritual 
literature,  —  pagan,  catholic,  and  protestant, — which 
would  tally  in  all  essential  respects  with  what  my 
father  felt  and  said  about  the  relation  of  the  Self 
and  the  Divine.  But  every  man  carries  his  signa- 
ture stamped  upon  him,  and  my  father's  was,  I 
think,  very  peculiar  indeed. 

The  common  run  of  mystics  seem  less  to  let 
their  Self  expire  than  to  get  it  calmed  and  appeased 
and  made  innocent  on  their  hands,  so  that  it  still 
remains  extant  to  taste  the  delights  of  God's  re- 
newed conversation  with  it.  This  gives  to  much 
of  their  writing  that  voluptuous  tinge,  that  perfume 
of  spiritual  sensuality,  which  makes  it  impossible  to 


INTRODUCTION.  73 

many  readers,  even  religious  ones,  to  get  any  edifi- 
cation from  their  pages.  One  feels  rebuked  and 
distanced,  and  kept  out  of  the  pale.  It  is  the  /,  and 
not  the  we,  that  speaks.  Now,  my  father,  with 
all  the  mystical  depth  of  experience,  and  all  the 
mystical  unction,  had  not  a  trace  of  the  mystical 
egotism  or  voluptuousness,  but  was  as  drastic  and 
unsentimental  as  old  Epictetus  or  even  Diogenes 
himself.  A  calm  and  clarified  and  triumphantly 
peaceful  self  was  still  a  self,  as  much  as  a  bitter 
and  grievous  one.  And  not  if  he  could  help  it, 
would  he  dally  and  toy  with  the  enemy  in  any 
shape.  Universal  Man  is  God's  one  creature: 
only  in  Man  and  through  Man  would  he  be  saved. 
*'  When  Swedenborg  called  the  selfliood  the  realm 
of  our  imcreation,  he  by  that  unexpected  word  sent 
a  breath  of  health  to  the  deepest  heart  of  hell." 
Uncreated  then  shall  my  self  become  !  Accordingly 
it  was  a  strange  thing  to  see  him,  when  in  a  de- 
pressed mood,  murmur  the  psalms  of  David  to 
himself  by  the  hour,  apparently  without  a  feeling 
of  personal  application.  He  fairly  revelled  in  the 
emotion  of  humanity,  and  lost  himself  in  the  senti- 
ment of  unity  with  his  kind,  like  a  river  in  the  sea. 
The  following  passage  may  be  quoted  here : 

"  All  the  science  or  knowledge  of  life  to  which 
I   am   begotten,  born,  and  bred   by  our  existing 


74  introduction: 

civilization  tells  me,  with  an  undeviating  persis- 
tency, that  there  is  nothing  so  divinely  true,  be- 
cause so  divinely  sweet  and  sufficing,  as  selfliood ; 
and  the  consequence  is  that  I  actually  succeed  in 
giving  the  real  divinity  in  my  great  race  or  nature 
only  a  scant  and  drowsy  recognition.  Indeed,  if 
I  should  freely  yield  to  instinct  within  me,  or 
abandon  myself  to  the  current  inspiration  of  cul- 
ture about  me,  I  doubt  not  I  should  end  by 
altogether  sacrificing  that  patient  divinity  to  the 
unscrupulous  idol  and  counterfeit  enshrined  in 
myself.  For  then  my  senses,  authenticated  and 
unchecked,  would  be  free  to  tell  me  that  my  life 
or  being  is  strictly  identical  with  my  finite  person- 
ality, and  that  the  only  death  and  hell  I  shall  ever 
have  to  dread  is  one  which  menaces  that  person- 
ality with  desolation;  namely,  the  death  and  hell 
wrapped  up  in  my  intimate  Divine-Natural  inno- 
cence, truth,  and  chastity.  I  confess,  though,  that 
when  once  one's  eyes  are  opened  to  a  glimmer  of 
eternal  truth  on  the  subject,  one  has  no  hesitation 
in  hoping  that  ere  he  is  caught  hearkening  to  this 
gospel  of  an  atheistic  and  drunken  self-conceit  he 
may  actually  perish  out  of  life,  and  the  great  lord 
of  life  know  him  no  more  forever.  I  for  one 
should  distinctly  prefer  forfeiting  my  self-conscious- 
ness altogether,  to  being  found  capable,  in  ever  so 
feeble  a  degree,  of  identifying  my  being  with  it. 


INTRODUCTION.  75 

My  being  lies  utterly  outside  of  myself,  lies  in 
utterly  forgetting  vayself,  lies  in  utterly  unlearning 
and  disusing  all  its  elaborately  petty  schemes  and 
dodges  now  grown  so  transparent  that  a  child  is 
not  deceived  by  them  ;  lies,  in  fact,  in  Jionestly  iden- 
tifying myself  with  others.  I  know  it  will  never  be 
possible  for  me  to  do  this  perfectly,  —  that  is,  attain 
to  self-extinction,  —  because  being  created,  I  can 
never  hope  actually  to  become  Divine ;  but  at  all 
events  I  shall  become  through  eternal  years  more 
and  more  intimately  one  in  nature,  and  I  hope  in 
spirit,  with  a  being  who  is  thoroughly  destitute  of 
this  finiting  principle,  —  that  is,  a  being  who  is  with- 
out selfhood  save  in  His  creatures.  And  certainly 
the  next  best  thing  to  being  God  is  to  know  Him, 
for  this  knowledge  makes  one  content  with  any 
burden  of  personal  limitation."  ^ 

Nothing  so  endlessly  besotted  in  Mr.  James's 
eyes,  as  the  pretension  to  possess  personally  any 
substantive  merit  or  advantage  whatever,  any  worth 
other  than  your  unconscious  uses  to  your  kind ! 
Nothing  pleased  him  like  exploding  the  bubbles 
of  conventional  dignity,  unless  it  was  fraternizing 
on  the  simplest  and  commonest  plane  with  all 
lowly  persons  whom  he  met.  To  exalt  humble  and 
abase  proud  things  was  ever  the  darling  sport  of 
1  Society  the  Redeemed  Form  of  Man,  p.  361. 


y6  INTRODUCTION, 

his  conversation,  —  a  conversation  the  somewhat 
reckless  invective  humor  of  which,  when  he  was  in 
the  abasing  mood,  often  startled  the  good  people 
of  Boston,  who  did  not  know  him  well  enough  to 
see  the  endlessly  genial  and  humane  intuition  from 
which  the  whole  mood  flowed.  A  friend,  in  a  pri- 
vate letter  received  during  this  writing,  says  of  him  : 
"  He  was  of  such  an  immense  temperament,  that 
when  you  took  him  to  task  for  violating  the  feel- 
ings of  others  in  his  talk,  he  would  score  you  black 
and  blue  for  your  distinctions ;  and  all  the  while  he 
made  you  feel  that  the  origin  of  the  matter  was  his 
divine  rage  with  himself  2A.  still  being  so  dominated 
by  his  natural  selfhood  which  would  not  be  shaken 
off.  I  have  felt  in  him  at  times,  away  down  at  bot- 
tom of  the  man,  so  sheer  a  humility  and  self-abase- 
ment as  to  give  me  an  idea  of  infinity." 

The  theology  that  went  with  all  this  was  the  pas- 
sionate conviction  that  the  real  creature  of  God  — 
human  nature  at  large,  minus  the  preposterous 
claims  of  the  several  selves  —  must  be  wholly  good. 
For  is  it  not  the  work  of  the  good  God,  or  rather 
the  very  substance  of  the  good  God,  there  beifig 
nought  beside? 

"  What  sort  of  a  creator  would  he  be  who  could 
allow,  for  a  single  moment,  such  an  imputation  to 


INTRODUCTION.  yj 

rest  upon  his  creative  power  as  that  his  creature 
was  really  hdid'?  Evidently  a  most  beggarly  sort. 
For  if  God's  creature  were  really  bad,  —  that  is, 
if  his  badness  be,  as  the  philosophers  say,  not 
only  subjective,  spiritual,  formal,  but  objective, 
natural,  substantial,  —  why,  then,  no  man  can  even 
begin  to  form  an  estimate  of  how  much  worse  than 
the  creature  the  creator  himself  must  be,  in  order 
simply  to  account  for  the  devilish  atrocity  of  such 
a  creation  !  The  creature,  you  know,  by  the  hypo- 
thesis of  his  creation,  is  absolute  nought  iji  him- 
self;  and  if  therefore  he  be  really  evil,  where  does 
this  evil  reality  of  his  come  from,  if  not  from  him 
in  whom  alone  he  lives  and  moves  and  has  his 
being?  " 

In  another  autobiographic  passage  he  defends 
the  rights  of  our  nature  as  being  the  very  incarna- 
tion of  God : — 

"  As  well  as  I  can  remember,  in  fact,  the  spring 
of  all  my  intellectual  activity  in  the  past  was  to 
know  for  certain  whether  our  felt  finiteness  was 
a  necessity  of  our  spiritual  creation,  or  simply 
an  incident  of  our  natural  constitution ;  whether, 
for  example,  it  was  to  be  interpreted  as  having 
been  arbitrarily  imposed  upon  us  by  the  Divine 
will,  or  as  inherent   merely   in   the  sentiment  we 


78  INTRODUCTION. 

SO  inordinately  cherish  of  personal  independence. 
For  in  the  former  case,  my  hope  in  God  necessarily 
dies  out  by  the  practical  decease  of  his  infinitude, 
while  in  the  latter  case  it  is  not  only  left  unim- 
paired, but  is  revived  and  invigorated.  .   .  . 

"  Here,  in  fact,  was  the  veritable  secret  source 
of  all  my  intellectual  unrest.  During  all  my  early 
intellectual  existence  I  was  haunted  by  so  keen  a 
sense  of  God's  natural  incongruity  with  me  —  of 
his  natural  and  therefore  invincible  alienation, 
otherness,  externality,  distance,  remoteness  to  me 
—  as  to  breed  in  my  bosom  oftentimes  a  wholly 
unspeakable  heartsickness  or  homesickness.  The 
sentiment,  to  be  sure,  masked  its  ineffable  malignity 
from  my  perception  under  the  guise  of  an  alleged 
supe^n^iatural  limitation  on  God's  part;  but  it  none 
the  less  filled  my  soul  with  the  tremor  and  pallor 
of  death.  I  have  no  doubt,  indeed,  that  if  it  had 
not  been  for  my  excessive  '  animal  spirits  '  as  we 
say,  or  the  extreme  good-will  I  felt  towards  sensu- 
ous pleasure  of  every  sort,  which  alternated  with  my 
morbid  conscientiousness  and  foiled  its  corrosive 
force,  I  should  have  turned  out  a  flagrant  case  of 
arrested  intellectual  development.  I  could  have 
borne  very  well,  mind  you,  a  conviction  of  God's 
personal  antipathy  to  me,  carried  to  any  pitch  you 
please,  for  my  person  does  not  go  with  my  nature 
as  man ;    and  a  personal  condemnation,  therefore, 


INTRODUCTION.  79 

which  should  not  cut  me  off  from  a  natural  res- 
urrection, would  not  deprive  me  of  hope  toward 
God.  But  my  conviction  of  God's  personal  alien- 
ation had  been  hopelessly  saddled,  through  the 
incompetency  of  my  theologic  sponsors,  with  the 
senseless  tradition  of  his  inveterate  estrangement 
also  from  Jiinnan  nature-  Thus,  unhappily,  though 
my  person  did  not  go  with  human  nature,  they 
made  human  nature  to  go  with  my  person,  or  man- 
aged so  perfectly  to  confound  the  two  things  to 
my  unpractised  sense,  that,  whenever  I  felt  a  su- 
perficial or  intrinsically  evanescent  pang  of  mere 
personal  remorse,  it  was  sure  to  pass,  by  a  quick 
diabolical  chemistry,  into  a  sense  of  the  deadliest 
natural  hostility  between  me  and  the  source  of 
my  life. 

"  It  is  in  fact  this  venomous  tradition  of  a  nat- 
ural as  well  as  a  personal  disproportion  between 
man  and  his  maker, — speciously  cloaked  as  it  is 
under  the  ascription  of  a  super vyaX.\xx2\  being  and 
existence  to  God,  —  that  alone  gives  its  intolerable 
odium  and  poignancy  to  men's  otherwise  health- 
ful and  restorative  conscience  of  sin.  That  man's 
personality  should  utterly  alienate  him  from  God,  — 
that  is  to  say,  make  him  infinitely  other  and  oppo- 
site to  God,  —  this  I  grant  you  with  all  my  heart ; 
since  if  God  were  the  least  like  me  personally, 
all  my  hope  in  him  would  perish.  .  .  .    But  that 


80  INTRODUCTION. 

God  should  be  also  an  infinitely  alien  substance  to 
me,  —  an  infinitely  other  or  foreign  nature,  —  this 
wounds  my  spontaneous  faith  in  him  to  its  core, 
or  leaves  it  a  mere  mercenary  and  servile  homage. 
I  perfectly  understand  how  he  should  disown  all 
private  or  personal  relation  to  me,  because  I  am, 
...  to  all  the  extent  of  my  distinctively  personal 
interests  and  ambitions,  the  impassioned  foe  and 
rival  of  universal  man.  This  is  one  thing.  But 
it  is  quite  a  different  and  most  odious  thing  that 
he  should  feel  an  envenomed  animosity  also  to 
my  innocent  nature,  or  what  binds  me  in  indisso- 
luble unity  with  every  man  of  woman  born."  ^ 

Some  sort  of  antinomianism,  or  indifference  to 
outward  human  contrasts,  is  the  logical  outcome 
of  every  creed  which  makes  the  Deity's  love  so 
impartial,  and  lays  such  stress  upon  the  promi- 
nence of  the  whole  to  his  regard.  I  cannot  say 
that  my  father  succeeded  in  practice  in  keeping 
faithful  to  this  consequence ;  but  in  theory  he 
did ;  and  great  was  his  delight  in  those  pages  of 
Swedenborg  in  which  he  found  the  doctrine  of 
indifference  clearly  set  down.  First,  concerning 
the  angels :  — 

"  The  angel  would  be  incontinently  overcome 
of  hell,  if  he  were  not  seduously  preserved  by  the 

*  Society  the  Redeemed  Form  of  Man,  pp.  314-318. 


IN  TROD  UC  TIO.V.  8 1 

Divine  power,  vanquishing  his  incessant  natural 
gravitation  towards  it.  Swedenborg  affirms  that 
he  found  no  angel  in  any  heaven,  however  elevated, 
who  was  not  in  himself,  or  intrinsically,  of  a  very 
shabby  pattern,  and  who  did  not,  therefore,  cordi- 
ally refer  all  his  goodness  and  wisdom  to  the  Lord ; 
and  he  sets  it  down  as  the  fundamental  principle  of 
their  intelligence,  that  they  ascribe  all  their  good 
to  the  Lord,  and  all  their  evil  to  the  devil.  No 
matter  what  heights  of  manly  virtue  the  angel  may 
have  reached;  no  matter  what  depths  of  Divine 
peace  and  contentment  he  may  have  sounded,  — 
Swedenborg  invariably  reports  that  in  himself,  or 
intrinsically,  he  is  replete  with  every  selfish  and 
worldly  lust,  being  in  fact  utterly  undistinguishable 
from  the  lowest  devil.  Was  ever  testimony  so 
loyal  as  this  ?  Was  ever  honest  heart  or  seeing 
eye  so  unseduced  before  by  the  most  specious 
shows  of  things?  I  confess  the  wonder  to  me  is 
endless.  What  other  man  in  that  rotten  and  de- 
graded generation  was  capable  of  such  devotion 
to  humanity?  Of  which  one  of  his  contemporaries 
could  you  allege,  that,  being  admitted  to  the  most 
lustrous  company  in  the  universe,  he  would  never 
for  an  instant  lose  his  balance,  or  duck  his  servile 
head  in  homage,  but  steadfastly  maintain  his  in- 
vincible faith  in  the  great  truth  of  human  equality? 
George  Washington  is  doubtless  an   unblemished 

6 


82  INTRODUCTION. 

name  to  all  the  extent  of  his  commerce  with  the 
world ;  but  how  puny  that  commerce  was,  com- 
pared with  this  grand  interior  commerce  of  the 
soul ;  and  how  juvenile  and  rustic  his  virtue  seems 
beside  the  profound,  serene,  unconscious  humanity 
of  this  despised  old  soldier  of  truth  !  To  gaze  un- 
dazzled  upon  the  solar  splendors  of  heaven ;  to  gaze 
undismayed  upon  the  sombre  abysses  of  hell ;  to 
preserve  one's  self-respect,  or  one's  fidelity  to  the 
Divine  name,  unbribed  by  the  subtlest  attractions 
of  the  one  sphere,  and  unchilled  by  the  nakedest 
horrors  of  the  other,  —  implies  a  heroism  of  soul 
which  in  no  wise  belongs  to  the  old  Church,  even 
in  its  highest  sanctities,  and  which  leaves  the  old 
State,  even  as  to  its  most  renowned  illustrations, 
absolutely  out  of  sight."  ^ 

Here  are  a  couple  of  soberer  passages :  — 

"  The  true  or  spiritual  creation  ignores  the  senti- 
ment of  morality  in  its  subjects,  —  that  is,  disallows 
the  distinction  of  good  and  evil  among  men,  as  at 
all  pertinent  to  the  Divine  mind.  No  angel  that 
Swedenborg  encountered  was  ever  so  foolish  as  to 
attribute  the  good  which  was  visible  in  him  to  him- 
self; and  no  devil  was  ever  wise  enough  not  to  do 
so.  The  fundamental  difference,  in  short,  between 
Swedenborg's  angels  and  devils  was  the  difference 

^  Christianity  the  Logic  of  Creation,  p.  17. 


INTRODUCTION.  83 

between  humility  and  loftiness,  —  the  latter  always 
cherishing  an  unsubdued  selfhood,  or  pride  of  char- 
acter ;  the  former  being  always  more  or  less  culti- 
vated out  of  it."  ^ 

"  Swedenborg  shows,  accordingly,  throughout  all 
his  books,  from  their  beginning  to  their  close,  that 
God  has  no  joy  in  the  angel,  nor  any  grief  in  the 
devil,  save  as  they  tend  to  enforce  or  enfeeble  the 
universality  and  the  particularity  of  his  presence 
and  providence  throughout  the  earth.  The  Lord's 
love,  as  Swedenborg  invariably  reports  it,  is  a 
universal  love,  being  the  salvation  of  the  whole 
human  race ;  and  no  form  of  his  church,  therefore, 
can  satisfy  his  regard,  which  is  not  practically  iden- 
tical with  the  interests  of  human  society,  —  that  is, 
which  does  not  in  itself  structurally  reproduce  and 
avouch  the  intimate  and  indissoluble  fellowship, 
equality,  brotherhood  of  universal  man."  ^ 

And  here  is  an  abstract  statement  about  good 
and  evil :  — 

"  Good  and  evil,  heaven  and  hell,  are  not  facts 
of  creative,  but  of  purely  constitutive,  order.  They 
bear  primarily  upon  man's  natural  destiny,  and 
have  no  relation  to  his  spiritual  freedom  save 
through  that.     They  are  the  mere  geology  of  our 

1  Secret  of  Swedenborg,  p.  107. 

2  Ibid.,  p.  78. 


84  INTRODUCTION. 

natural  consciousness;  and  this  is  all  they  are. 
They  have  no  distinctively  supernatural  quality 
nor  efficacy  whatever.  They  have  a  simply  con- 
stitutional relevancy  to  the  earth  of  man's  asso- 
ciated consciousness,  and  disavow  therefore  any 
properly  creative  or  controlling  relation  to  his 
spiritual  or  individual  freedom.  We  have  been 
traditionally  taught  that  good  and  evil,  heaven  and 
hell,  were  objective  realities,  having  an  absolute 
ground  of  being  in  the  creative  perfection.  But 
this  is  the  baldest,  most  bewildering  nonsense. 
They  have  not  a  grain  of  objective  reality  in  them, 
and  are  no  way  vitalized  by  the  absolute  Divine 
perfection.  They  are  purely  subjective  appear- 
ances, vitalized  exclusively  by  the  created  imper- 
fection, or  the  uses  they  subserve  to  our  provi- 
sional moral  and  rational  consciousness.  When, 
accordingly,  this  consciousness  —  having  more  than 
fulfilled  its  legitimate  office,  and  become,  as  it  now 
is,  a  mere  stumbling-block  or  rock  of  offence  to 
the  regenerate  mind  of  the  race  —  finally  expires 
in  its  own  stench,  or  else  frankly  allows  itself  to  be 
taken  up  and  disappear  in  our  advancing  social  and 
aesthetic  consciousness,  good  and  evil,  heaven  and 
hell,  will  cease  to  be  appearances  even.  For  angel 
and  devil,  saint  and  sinner,  will  then  find  them- 
selves perfectly  fused  or  made  over  in  a  new  or 
comprehensive  race-manhood,  which  will  laugh  to 


INTRODUCTION.  8$ 

scorn  our  best  empirical  or  tentative  manhood, — 
that  is,  otir  existing  civic  and  ecclesiastic  manhood 
so-called."  ^ 

One  more  quotation  may  conclude  our  illustra 
tions  of  this  aspect  of  Mr.  James's  philosophy: 

"  There  are  no  fundamental  differences  in  men. 
All  men  have  one  and  the  same  Creator,  one  and 
the  same  essential  being ;  and  what  formally  dif- 
ferences one  man  from  another,  what  distinguishes 
hell  from  heaven,  is  that  they  are  differently  related 
to  the  ViWiVi^-natural  humanity,  or  to  the  life  of 
God  in  nature,  which  is  a  life  of  perfect  freedom 
or  spontaneity.  In  that  life  self-love  freely  subor- 
dinates itself  to  neighborly  love,  or  promotes  its 
own  ends  by  promoting  the  welfare  of  all  mankind. 
But  so  long  as  this  life  is  wholly  unsuspected  by 
men ;  so  long  as  no  man  dreams  of  any  other  social 
destiny  for  the  race  than  that  which  it  has  already 
realized,  and  which  leaves  one  man  out  of  all  fel- 
lowship or  equality  with  another,  —  self-love  is  com- 
pletely unprovided  for,  except  in  subtle  and  hypo- 
critical forms,  and  is  consequently  driven  to  these 
disorderly  assertions  of  itself  by  way  of  actually 
keeping  itself  alive.  .  .  .  The  liar,  the  thief,  the 
adulterer,  the  murderer,  no  doubt  utterly  perverts 
the  divine  life  which  is  latent  in  every  human  form ; 
1  Society  the  Redeemed  Form  of  Man,  p.  251. 


S6  INTRODUCTION. 

he  degrades  and  defiles  self-love,  in  lifting  it  out 
of  that  free  subordination  which  it  will  evince  to 
brotherly  love  in  the  T)\v\ne:-natii7'al  man :  but  he 
nevertheless  does  all  this  in  the  way  of  a  mute, 
unconscious  protest  against  an  overwhelming  social 
tyranny,  which  would  otherwise  crush  out  the  dis- 
tinctive life  of  man  under  the  machinery  of  govern- 
ment and  caste.  Accordingly,  I  am  profoundly 
convinced  that  if  it  had  not  been  for  these  men; 
if  we  had  not  had  some  persons  of  that  audacious 
make  which  would  qualify  them  to  throw  off  their 
existing  social  subjection,  and  so  ventilate,  even  by 
infernal  airs,  the  underlying  life  and  freedom  of 
humanity,  —  that  life  and  freedom  would  have 
been  utterly  stifled,  and  we  should  now  be  a  race 
of  abject  slaves,  without  hope  towards  God,  with- 
out love  to  our  fellow-man,  contentedly  kissing  the 
feet  of  some  infallible  Pope  of  Rome,  contentedly 
doing  the  bidding  of  some  unquestionable  Em- 
peror of  all  the  Russias.  These  men  have  been, 
unknown  to  themselves,  the  forlorn  hope  of  hu- 
manity, plunging  headlong  into  the  unfathomable 
night  only  that  we  by  the  bridge  of  their  desecrat- 
ed forms  might  eventually  pass  over  its  hideous 
abysses  into  the  realms  of  endless  day.  Let  us, 
then,  at  least  manfully  acknowledge  our  indebted- 
ness to  them ;  let  us  view  them  as  the  unconscious 
martyrs  of  humanity,  dying  for  a  cause  so  divinely 


INTRODUCTION.  8/ 

high  as  to  accept  no  conscious  or  voluntary  adhe- 
sion, and  yet  so  divinely  sure  and  sweet  and  human 
as  ultimately  to  vindicate  even  their  dishonored 
memory,  and  rehabilitate  them  in  the  love  and 
tenderness  of  eternal  ages.  In  short,  let  us  agree 
with  Swedenborg,  that  odious  and  fearful  as  these 
men  have  seemed  in  merely  celestial  light,  they 
have  yet  borne  the  unrecognized  livery  of  the 
Divine-NATURAL  humanity,  and  will  not  fail  in  the 
end  to  swell  the  triumphs  of  his  majestic  patience. 
And  this,  simply  because  by  an  undying  divine 
instinct,  under  every  depth  of  degradation  celes- 
tially viewed,  they  have  always  been  true  to  them- 
selves, —  feeling  themselves  to  be  men  and  not 
devils,  —  and  over  their  scarred  and  riven  legions 
have  ever  indestructibly  waved  the  banner  of  a 
conscious  freedom  and  rationality."  ^ 

Such  being  Mr.  James's  intellectual  destiny,  there 
was  no  fending  off  the  catastrophe  that  had  to 
occur  in  his  relations  with  the  church  in  which  he 
was  born.  For  the  church,  the  particular  person 
is  the  unit,  wherewith,  in  the  last  resort,  God 
deals.  Whatever  theological  formulas  the  sects 
may  use,  whatever  reasons  for  the  damning,  what- 
ever means  for  the  saving,  they  may  assign,  still  it 
is  always  one  of  us  who  becomes  God's  vessel  of 

1  Christianity  the  Logic  of  Creation,  pp.  104-7. 


88  INTR  OD  UC  TION. 

honor,  and  another  who  is  lost  from  out  his  sight. 
He  thus  stands  over  against  us,  an  impiiter,  an  out- 
ward and  eventually  a  hostile  power,  consecrating, 
by  the  absolute  distinctions  he  makes,  that  whole 
seething  life  of  private  jealousy  and  exclusion  which 
is  the  bane  of  this  world's  estate. 

Here  is  an  autobiographic  passage  which  may 
usher  in  some  of  the  drastic  remarks  on  the  bad 
stewardship  of  the  church  which  our  author  scat- 
ters about  with  so  profuse  a  hand :  -^  — 

"  I  never  questioned  the  absoluteness  of  all  the 
data,  good  and  evil,  of  my  moral  experience.  I 
never  doubted  the  infinite  and  eternal  consequen- 
ces which  seemed  to  me  to  be  wrapped  up  in  my 
consciousness  of  personality,  or  the  sentiment  I 
habitually  cherished  of  my  individual  relations  and 
responsibility  to  God.  I  had  never,  to  my  own 
suspicion,  been  arrayed  in  any  overt  hostility  to 
the  Divine  name.  On  the  contrary,  I  reckoned 
myself  an  unaffected  friend  of  God,  inasmuch  as 
I   was    a   most   eager   and  conscientious    aspirant 

^  His  earlier  writings  were  largely  taken  up  with  negative  criti- 
cisms on  Orthodoxy  in  its  practice  as  well  as  its  teaching.  The 
essay  entitled  "The  Old  and  the  New  Theology"  (in  the  volume 
of  "  Lectures  and  Miscellanies"),  and  the  work  called  the  "Church 
of  Christ  not  an  Ecclesiasticism,"  are  masterpieces  in  this  vein. 
The  last  named  work  seems  to  have  been  written  in  a  peculiarly 
happy  hour,  and  is  distinguished  by  a  charming  freshness  and 
geniality  of  tone. 


INTRODUCTION.  89 

after  moral  perfection.  And  yet  the  total  uncon- 
scious current  of  my  religious  life  was  so  egotistic, 
the  habitual  color  of  my  piety  was  so  bronzed  by 
an  inmost  selfishness  and  indifference  to  all  man- 
kind, save  in  so  far  as  my  action  towards  them 
bore  upon  my  own  salvation,  that  I  never  reflected 
myself  to  myself,  never  was  able  to  look  back  upon 
any  chance  furrow  my  personality  had  left  upon 
the  sea  of  time,  without  a  shuddering  conviction 
of  the  abysses  of  spiritual  profligacy  over  which  I 
perpetually  hovered,  and  towards  which  I  inces- 
santly gravitated.  .  .  .  From  the  day  of  my  birth 
I  had  not  only  never  known  what  it  was  to  have 
an  honest  want,  a  want  of  my  nature,  ungratified, 
but  I  had  also  been  able  to  squander,  upon  the  will 
of  my  personal  caprice,  an  amount  of  sustenance 
equal  to  the  maintenance  of  a  virtuous  household. 
And  yet  thousands  of  persons  directly  about  me, 
in  all  respects  my  equals,  in  many  respects  my 
superiors,  had  never  in  all  their  lives  enjoyed  an 
honest  meal,  an  honest  sleep,  an  honest  suit  of 
clothes,  save  at  the  expense  of  their  own  personal 
toil  or  of  that  of  some  parent  or  child,  and  had  never 
once  been  able  to  give  the  reins  to  their  personal 
caprice  without  an  ignominious  exposure  to  severe 
social  penalties.  It  is,  to  be  sure,  perfectly  just 
that  I  should  be  conveniently  fed  and  lodged  and 
clad,    and    that  I  should  be  educated    out  of  my 


90  INTRODUCTION. 

native  ignorance;  but  it  is  a  monstrous  affront  to 
the  divine  justice  or  righteousness  that  I  should 
be  guaranteed,  by  what  calls  itself  society,  a  life- 
long career  of  luxury  and  self-indulgence,  while 
so  many  other  men  and  women,  my  superiors,  go 
all  their  days  miserably  fed,  miserably  lodged, 
miserably  clothed,  and  die  at  last  in  the  same 
ignorance  and  imbecility,  though  not,  alas !  in  the 
same  innocence,  that  cradled  their  infancy.. 

"  Now,  I  had  long  felt  this  deep  spiritual  damna- 
tion in  myself  growing  out  of  an  outraged  and 
insulted  divine  justice,  had  long  been  pent  up  in 
spirit  to  these  earthquake  mutterings  and  menaces 
of  a  violated  conscience,  without  seeing  any  clear 
door  of  escape  open  to  me.  That  is  to  say,  I 
perceived  with  endless  perspicacity,  that,  if  it  were 
not  for  the  hand  of  God's  providence  visiting  with 
constant  humiliation  and  blight  every  secret  aspi- 
ration of  my  pride  and  vanity,  I  should  be  more 
than  any  other  man  reconciled  to  the  existing  most 
atrocious  state  of  things.  I  knew  no  outward  want ; 
I  had  the  amplest  social  recognition ;  I  enjoyed 
the  converse  and  friendship  of  distinguished  men ; 
I  floated  in  fact  on  a  sea  of  unrighteous  plenty; 
and  I  was  all  the  while  so  indifferent,  if  not  inimical 
in  heart,  to  the  divine  justice,  that  save  for  the 
spiritual  terrors  it  ever  and  anon  supplied  to  my 
lethargic   sympathies,  to    my  swinish  ambition,    I 


INTRO  D  UC  TION.  9 1 

should  have  dragged  out  all  my  days  in  that  com- 
placent sty,  nor  have  ever  so  much   as    dreamed 
that  the  outward  want  of  my  fellows  —  their  want 
with  respect  to  nature  and  society  —  was  in  truth 
but   the   visible    sign    and  fruit   of  my  own  truer 
Avant,    my   own    more  inward  destitution  with  re- 
spect to  God.     Thus  my  religious  conscience  was 
one  of  poignant   misgiving  toward  God,  if   not  of 
complete    practical    separation ;    and   it    filled    my 
intellect  with  all  manner  of  perplexed  speculation 
and    gloomy    foreboding.      Do    what    I    might,    I 
never  could  attain  to  the  least  rehgious  self-com- 
placency, or  push  my  devout  instincts  to  the  point 
of  actual  fanaticism.     Do  what   I  would,  I  could 
never    succeed    in    persuading    myself   that    God 
Almighty  cared  a  jot  for  me  in  my  personal  ca- 
pacity, —  that  is,  as  I  stood  morally  individualized 
from,  or  consciously  antagonized  with,  my  kind ; 
and  yet  this  was  the  identical  spiritual  obligation 
imposed  upon  me  by  the  Church.     Time  and  again 
I  consulted  my  spiritual  advisers  to  know  how  it 
might  do  for  me  to  abandon  myself  to  the  simple 
joy  of  the  truth  as  it  was  in  Christ,  without  taking 
any  thought  for  the  Church,  or  the  interests  of  my 
religious   character.      And    they   always   told    me 
that  it  would  not  do  at  all ;  that  my  Church  sym- 
pathies, or  the   demands   of  my  religious  charac- 
ter, were  everything  comparatively,  and  my  mere 


92  INTRODUCTION. 

belief  in  Christ  comparatively  nothing,  since  devils 
believed  just  as  much  as  I  did.  The  retort  was 
as  apt  as  it  was  obvious,  that  the  devils  believed 
and  trembled,  while  I  believed  and  rejoiced ;  and 
that  this  joy  on  my  part  could  not  be  helped,  but 
only  hindered,  whenever  it  was  allowed  to  be  com- 
plicated with  any  question  about  myself.  But,  no  ; 
the  evidently  foregone  conclusion  to  be  forced 
upon  me  in  every  case  was,  that  a  man's  religious 
standing,  or  the  love  he  bears  the  Church,  takes 
the  place  under  the  gospel  of  his  moral  standing, 
or  the  love  he  bore  the  State  under  the  law ;  hence 
that  no  amount  of  delight  in  the  truth,  for  the 
truth's  sake  alone,  could  avail  me  spiritually,  un- 
less it  were  associated  with  a  scrupulous  regard 
for  a  sanctified  public  opinion. 

"  Imagine,  then,  my  glad  surprise,  my  cordial  re- 
lief, when  in  this  state  of  robust  religious  naked- 
ness, with  no  wretchedest  fig-leaf  of  ecclesiastical 
finery  to  cover  me  from  the  divine  inclemency,  I 
caught  my  first  glimpse  of  the  spiritual  contents 
of  revelation,  or  discerned  the  profoundly  philoso- 
phic scope  of  the  Christian  truth.  This  truth  at 
once  emboldened  me  to  obey  my  own  regener- 
ate intellectual  instincts  without  further  parley,  in 
throwing  the  Church  overboard,  or  demitting  all 
care  of  my  religious  character  to  the  devils,  of 
whom    alone   such   care    is   an    inspiration.      The 


INTRODUCTION.  93 

Christian  truth,  indeed,  .  .  .  teaches  me  to  look 
upon  the  Church's  heartiest  mahson  as  God's 
heartiest  benison,  inasmuch  as  whatsoever  is  most 
highly  esteemed  among  men  —  namely,  that  pri- 
vate or  personal  righteousness  in  man,  of  which 
the  Church  is  the  special  protagonist  and  voucher 
—  is  abomination  to  God.  ...  In  other  words, 
spiritual  Christianity  means  the  complete  secula- 
rization of  the  Divine  name,  or  its  identification 
henceforth  only  with  man's  common  or  natural 
want,  — that  want  in  which  all  men  are  absolutely 
one,  —  and  its  consequent  utter  estrangement  from 
the  sphere  of  his  private  or  personal  fulness,  in 
which  every  man  is  consciously  divided  from  his 
neighbor ;  so  that  I  may  never  aspire  to  the  Divine 
favor,  and  scarcely  to  the  Divine  tolerance,  save 
in  my  social  or  redeemed  natural  aspect,  —  that 
is,  as  I  stand  morally  identified  with  the  vast  com- 
munity of  men  of  whatever  race  or  religion,  cul- 
tivating no  consciousness  of  antagonist  interests 
to  any  other  man,  but  on  the  contrary  frankly  dis- 
owning every  personal  hope  towards  God  which 
does  not  flow  exclusively  from  his  redemption  of 
human  nature,  or  is  not  based,  purely  and  simply, 
upon  his  indiscriminate  love  to  the  race."  ^ 

1  Secret  of  Swedenborg ;  pp.  170-175  (abridged).  I  append  a 
couple  of  other  passages  which  carry  out  the  same  idea :  — 

"The  church  spirit  is  par  excellence  the  evil-spirit  in  humanity, 
source  of  all  its  profounder  and  irremediable  woes.     Do  not,  I 


94  INTRODUCTION. 

"  Deism,"  as  I  have  already  said,  was  Mr.  James's 
name  for  the  doctrine  that  represents  God  as  ex- 
ternal to  a  plurality  of  absolute  and  substantial 
subject   beings. 

beg  of  you,  interpret  me  to  your  own  thought  as  saying  that  the 
Church  stimulates  any  of  man's  actual  or  moral  evils.  I  say  no 
such  stupid  thing.  For  it  is  notorious  that  the  Church  studi- 
ously fosters  the  sentiment  of  moral  worth  or  dignity  in  its  disci- 
ples,—  the  sentiment  of  distinction  or  difference  between  them  and 
other  men.  It  is  only  by  so  doing,  indeed,  that  she  fixes  or  hard- 
ens them  in  that  tendency  Xo  proprium  or  selfhood  to  which  they 
are  naturally  inclined,  and  thus  delivers  them  over,  bound  hand 
and  foot,  to  spiritual  pride.  .  .  .  However  selfish  or  worldly  a 
man  may  be,  these  are  good  honest  natural  evils,  and  you  have 
only  to  apply  a  motive  sufficiently  stimulating  in  either  case,  and 
you  will  induce  the  subject  to  forbear  them.  But  spiritual  pride 
is  inward  evil  exclusively,  pertaining  to  the  selfhood  of  the  man, 
or  livingly  appropriated  by  him  as  his  own,  and  cannot  therefore 
become  known  to  him  save  in  the  form  of  an  outward  natural 
representation ;  for  it  is  not  like  moral  evil,  mere  oppugnancy  to 
good,  but  it  is  the  actual  and  deadly  profanation  of  good,  or  the 
lavish  acknowledgment  of  it  with  a  view  of  subordinating  it  to 
personal,  or  selfish  and  worldly  ends.  It  is  the  only  truly  formid- 
able evil  known  to  God's  providence,  being  that  of  j^^-righte- 
ousness,  and  hence  the  only  evil  which  essentially  threatens  to 
undermine  the  foundations  of  God's  throne."  —  Society  the  Re- 
deemed Form  of  Man,  pp.  201,  202. 

"  Subjective  or  personal  consciousness,  then,  —  the  feeling  we 
all  of  us  have  that  our  natural  selfhood  is  our  own  absolutely,  and 
without  reference  to  any  grander  natural  objectivity,  such  for  ex- 
ample as  society, —  is  the  brimming  spiritual  death  wrapped  up  in 
every  man  by  virtue  of  his  finite  generation.  .  .  .  There  is  no 
evil  at  all  comparable  with  this  either  for  comprehensiveness  or 
intensity,  if  it  be  allowed  to  go  uncorrected ;  for  it  is  altogether 
fatal  to  man's  spiritual  life,  which  consists  in  his  loving  his  neigh- 
bor as  himself.  Now  the  only  possible  way  for  a  man  to  do  this 
is  to  feel  that  he  is  >tot  self-centred,  that  his  life  is  not  his  own 


INTRODUCTION.  95 

**  If  the  Church  could  have  sincerely  felt  to  be 
true  what  she  always  formally  professed,  —  namely, 
that  God  was  the  sole  real  and  active  life  of  our 
nature,  —  she  might  perhaps  have  put  herself  at 
the  head  of  human  affairs,  and  victoriously  led 
man's  forlorn  hope  against  the  sullen  and  sodden 

personally,  but  belongs  to  him  in  strict  community  with  his  neigh- 
bor :  thus  that  he  and  his  neighbor  are  both  alike  dependent,  at 
every  moment,  for  every  breath  of  life  they  draw,  upon  one  and  the 
same  merciful  and  impartial  source.  In  other  words,  a  man  loves 
his  neighbor  as  himself  only  by  virtue  of  his  first  loving  God  above 
himself,  or  supremely.  And  the  only  way  this  supreme  love  be- 
comes developed  or  educated  in  him,  is  through  his  moral  experi- 
ence, or  his  obedience  to  law.  Whenever,  and  so  long  as,  man  is 
tempted  to  commit  false  or  malicious  speaking,  theft,  adultery, 
murder,  or  covetousness,  and  yet  abstains  from  doing  it  out  of 
a  sincere  inward  regard  for  the  Divine  name,  his  self-love,  so  far 
as  it  is  harmful,  is  spiritually  slain,  and  the  Divine  love  infallibly 
replaces  it.  These  formal  vices  express  the  whole  substantial 
evil  known  to  the  human  heart ;  and  when  man,  therefore,  in  the 
exercise  of  a  felt  freedom  and  rationality,  deposes  them  or  any  of 
them  from  their  habitual  control  over  his  action, — not  because 
they  conflict  with  his  outward  welfare,  or  expose  him  to  the 
contempt  of  men,  but  simply  because  they  wound  his  inward 
reverence  for  the  Divine  name,  —  he  becomes  spiritually  regen- 
erate or  new-born.  Falsehood,  theft,  adulterv,  murder,  and 
covetousness  are,  in  other  words,  only  signs  or  symbols  of  a 
deeper  and  altogether  latent  spiritual  evil  fatally  separating 
man  from  God,  —  the  evil  of  a  supreme  self-love.  Grave  as 
these  evils  unquestionably  are  in  themselves,  or  absolutely,  they 
have  yet  only  a  superficial  moral  quality;  that  is,  grow  out  of 
men's  still  unreconciled  or  inharmonic  relations  inter  se,  or  their 
frank  insubjection  to  the  social  sentiment,  and  do  not  by  any 
means  necessarily  imply  any  permanent  spiritual  or  individual 
estrangement  between  them  and  God."  —  Society  the  Redeemed 
Form  of  Man,  pp.   268-270. 


96  INTRODUCTION. 

Deity  that  everywhere  affects  of  right  to  bestride 
the  world. 

"  The  sincere,  uncommitted  mass  of  men  are 
spiritually  and  intellectually  incompetent  to  recog- 
nize any  *  slough  of  despond '  half  so  fatal  or 
frightful  to  them  as  that  of  deism,  which  is  the 
conception  of  God  as  a  power  essentially  outside 
of  man,  and  therefore  both  inimical  and  hateful  to 
him.  Deism  is  out  and  out  the  only  doctrine  that 
has  power  logically  to  fill  the  human  heart  with 
despair  towards  God,  /;/  making  ina^i s  person  a 
reality.  But  this  vile  deistic  doctrine  is  the  very 
most  cherished  doctrine  of  the  Church  itself,  with- 
out which  indeed  to  inspire  it,  it  would  be  ready 
to  confess  itself  a  mere  lunatic  organization,  with- 
out further  business  upon  the  earth.  And  there 
is  no  chance,  consequently,  of  the  Church's  again 
leading  the  human  mind,  in  ministering  to  men's 
higher  interests,  unless  she  at  once  renounces  the 
very  doctrine  by  which  she  lives,  and  returns  ex 
animo  to  the  early  faith  which  was  once  literally 
her  only  possession,  —  namely,  that  God,  the  only 
true  God,  the  only  God  worthy  to  inspire  the 
devotion  of  the  human  heart,  is  not  any  God  of 
the  nations,  or  foreign  supernatural,  deity  at  all, 
but  is  all  simply  the  Lord  ;  that  is,  QioA-man  figura- 
tively made  known  to  us  in  the  Christ,  —  thus  a 
most  domestic  deity,  partaker  of  our  own  nature 


introduction:  97 

to  the  very  brim,  making  the  very  grave  a  farce 
by  virtue  of  it,  essential  source  and  purveyor  in 
fact  of  this  nature,  and  constant  spiritual  redeemer 
of  it  from  the  defilement  and  limitation  imposed 
upon  it  by  our  own  most  absurd  and  dishonest 
personality. 

"  But  it  is  idle,  and  worse  than  idle,  to  expect  any 
revival  of  the  Church,  The  Bible  would  have  to 
be  written  over  again,  before  that  stale  mother  of 
harlots  could  ever  presume  again  to  put  on  the 
dew  of  her  infancy,  and  aspire  to  head  human 
hope  in  its  patient,  ever  enduring  battle  against 
deistic  oppression  and  tyranny.  The  Church  is 
absolutely  identified  with  the  deistic  name  and 
fame  throughout  history,  so  that  no  honest  human 
cause,  nor  any  sincere  zeal  for  humanity,  has  ever 
been  ecclesiastically  born  or  ecclesiastically  pro- 
pagated. The  visible  Church  is  altogether  dead 
in  fact,  sans  teeth,  sans  eyes,  sans  taste,  sans  every- 
thing. Unknown  to,  and  even  unfelt  by,  itself  con- 
sequently, it  has  providentially  been  replaced  by  a 
new  and  subtler,  because  living  or  invisible,  Church, 
which  will  neither  itself  be,  nor  of  itself  breed,  any 
hindrance  to  human  hope  and  aspiration."  ^ 

The  treacherous  part  played  by  "  professional 
religion  "  is  thus  described  :  — 

1  The  New  Church  Independent,  August,  l88i,  pp.  373,  374. 
7 


5>8  INTRODUCTION. 

"  The  only  danger  to  the  spirit  of  religion  comes 
from  the  effort  of  the  soul  to  assume  and  cherish 
a  devout  i"^/y"-consciousness ;  or  so  to  abound  in  a 
religious  sense,  as  to  incur  the  imputation  of  religi- 
osity or  superstition.  This  is  the  inalienable  vice 
of  professional  religion,  the  only  sincere  fruit  it  is 
capable  of  bringing  forth.  The  evil  spirit  which 
religion  is  primarily  intended  to  exorcise  in  us  is 
the  spirit  of  selfhood,  based  upon  a  most  inade- 
quate apprehension  of  its  strictly  provisional  uses 
to  our  spiritual  nurture.  The  gradual  conquest  or 
slaying  of  this  unholy  spirit  of  self  in  man  is  the 
sole  function  which  religion  proposes  to  itself  dur- 
ing his  natural  life ;  and  without  taxing  our  co- 
operation too  severely,  it  yet  gives  us  enough  to  do 
before  its  benignant  mission  is  fully  wrought  out. 
Such  being  the  invariable  office  of  the  religious 
instinct,  professional  religion  steps  in  to  simulate 
its  sway ;  and  with  an  air  all  the  while  of  even  cant- 
ing deference,  proceeds  to  build  again  the  things 
which  were  destroyed,  by  reorganizing  man's  self- 
hood on  a  more  specious  or  consecrated  basis,  and 
so  authenticating  all  its  unslain  lusts  in  a  way  of 
devotion  to  the  conventicle,  at  least,  if  not  to  the 
open,  undisguised  world. 

"  Professional  religion  thus  stamps  itself  the 
devil's  subtlest  device  for  keeping  the  human  soul 
in  bondage.     Religion  says  death — inward  or  spir- 


INTR  OD  UC  TION.  99 

itual  death  —  to  the  selfliood  in  man.  Professional 
religion  says :  '  Nay,  not  death,  above  all  not  in- 
ward or  spiritual  —  because  this  would  be  living — 
death,  and  obviously  the  selfhood  must  live  in 
order  to  be  vivified  of  God.  By  no  means,  there- 
fore, let  us  say  an  inward  or  living  death  to  self- 
hood, but  an  outward  or  quasi  death,  professionally 
or  ritnally  enacted,  and  so  operating  a  change  of 
base  for  the  selfhood.  Selfhood  doubtless  has 
been  hitherto  based  upon  a  most  unrighteous 
enmity  on  the  part  of  the  world  to  God,  and  has 
of  itself  shared  the  enmity.  Let  man  then  only 
acknowledge,  professionally  or  ritually,  this  wicked 
enmity  of  the  world  to  God,  and  he  may  keep  his 
selfhood  unimpaired  and  unchallenged,  to  expand 
and  flourish  in  secula  secnloj'iim.' 

"  Professional  religion,  I  repeat,  is  the  devil's  mas- 
terpiece for  ensnaring  silly,  selfish  men.  The  ugly 
beast  has  two  heads :  one  called  Ritualism,  intended 
to  devour  a  finer  and  fastidious  style  of  men,  —  men 
of  sentiment  and  decorum,  cherishing  scrupulously 
moderate  views  of  the  difference  between  man  and 
God ;  the  other  called  Revivalism,  with  a  great 
red  mouth  intended  to  gobble  up  a  coarser  sort  of 
men,  —  men  for  the  most  part  of  a  fierce  carnality, 
of  ungovernable  appetite  and  passion,  susceptible 
at  best  only  of  the  most  selfish  hopes  and  the 
most  selfish  fears  towards  God.      I  must  say,  we 


lOO  INTRODUCTIONS 

are  not  greatly  devastated  here  in  Boston  —  though 
occasionally  vexed  —  by  either  head  of  the  beast ; 
on  the  contrary,  it  is  amusing  enough  to  observe 
how  afraid  the  great  beast  himself  is  of  being 
pecked  to  pieces  on  our  streets  by  a  little  indige- 
nous bantam-cock  which  calls  itself  Radicalism, 
and  which  struts  and  crows  and  scratches  gravel 
in  a  manner  so  bumptious  and  peremptory,  that 
I  defy  any  ordinary  barnyard  chanticleer  to  imi- 
tate it."  1 

Even  the  possession  of  the  Bible  has  been  una- 
vailing to  us,  since  its  official  interpreters  have 
reversed  its  spiritual  sense :  — 

**  The  letter  of  Revelation  has  doubtless  proved 
inestimably  advantageous  to  our  civilization ;  but 
the  most  orderly  citizenship  is  as  remote  from  spon- 
taneous or  spiritual  manhood  as  baked  apples  are 
from  ripe  ones.  Compared  with  heathen  nations, 
we  are  indeed  as  baked  apples  to  green ;  but  I  do 
not  see  that  apples  plucked  green  from  the  tree 
and  assiduously  cooked,  as  we  have  been,  are  near 
so  likely  to  ripen  in  the  long  run  as  those  which 
are  still  left  hanging  upon  the  boughs,  exposed  to 
God's  unstinted  sun  and  air.  We  manage  to  main- 
tain our  egregious  self-complacency  unperturbed, 
by  vehemently  compassionating  the  heathen,  and 

1  Society  the  Redeemed  Form  of  Man,  p.  42. 


INTRODUCTION.  I  o  I 

sending  out  missionaries  to  convert  them  to  our 
foolish  ecclesiastical  habits,  —  precisely  as  if  a 
baked  apple  should  grudge  its  fellows  their  natural 
ripening,  and  beg  them  also  to  come  and  sputter 
their  indignant  life  away  under  the  burning  summer 
of  the  oven,  under  the  blackening  autumn  of  the 
bake-pan.  In  fact,  the  heathen,  I  suspect,  find  it 
difficult  to  regard  us  yet  even  as  baked  fruit.  Our 
ungenerous  overbearing  and  polluting  intercourse 
with  them  fits  them  rather  to  regard  us  only  as 
very  rotten  fruit.  Whether  baked  or  rotten,  how- 
ever, we  are  in  either  case,  so  far  as  our  ecclesias- 
tical and  political  manners  are  concerned,  past  the 
chance  of  any  inward  or  spiritual  ripening.  So  far 
as  our  ecclesiastical  conscience  is  concerned  espe- 
cially, there  does  not  seem  one  drop  of  honest  native 
unsophisticated  juice  left  in  us.  If  there  were, 
could  we  be  so  content  year  in  and  year  out  to  see 
our  clergy,  heterodox  and  orthodox,  alternately  cuff 
and  clout  God's  sacred  word,  —  which  is  inwardly 
all  alive  and  leaping  with  spiritual  or  universal 
meaning, —  as  if  it  were  some  puny  brat  of  man's 
begetting,  some  sickly  old-wives'  tale,  some  vapid 
and  senile  tradition,  destitute  even  of  a  fabulous 
grace  and  tenderness  ?  "  ^ 

As  one   of  the   appendices  to  "  Substance  and 
Shadow,"  Mr.  James  gives  us  an  apologue  and  its 

^  Substance  and  Shadow,  p.  503. 


102  INTRODUCTION. 

moral,  —  both  of  them  too  good   sense  and  too. 
good  Hterature  not  to  be  copied  here :  — 

"  I  knew  a  gentleman  some  years  ago  of  exem- 
plary religiosity  and  politeness,  but  of  a  seasoned 
inward  duplicity,  who  failed  in  business,  as  was 
supposed,  fraudulently.  He  was  in  the  habit  of 
meeting  one  of  the  largest  of  his  creditors  every 
Sunday  on  his  way  to  church,  where  his  own  voice 
was  always  among  the  most  melodious  to  confess 
any  amount  of  abstract  sins  and  iniquities;  and  he 
never  failed  to  raise  his  hat  from  his  head  as  he 
passed,  and  testify  by  every  demonstrative  flourish 
how  much  he  would  still  do  for  the  bare  forms  of 
friendship,  when  its  life  or  substance  was  fled. 
The  creditor  was  long  impatient,  but  at  last  grew 
frantic  under  this  remorseless  courtesy,  and  stop- 
ping his  debtor  one  day,  told  him  that  he  would 
cheerfully  abandon  to  him  the  ten  thousand  dollars 
he  had  robbed  him  of,  provided  he  would  forego 
the  exhibition  of  so  much  nauseous  politeness. 
'  Sir,'  replied  the  imperturbable  scamp, '  I  would  not 
forego  the  expression  of  my  duty  to  you,  when  we 
meet,  for  twice  ten  thousand  dollars  !  '  This  is  very 
much  our  case  religiously;  whereas,  if  we  would 
only  give  over  our  eternal  grimacing  and  posturing, 
only  leave  off  our  affable  but  odious  ducking  and 
bowing  to  our  great  creditor,  long  enough  to  see, 


INTR  on  UC  TION.  1 03 

the  real  truth  of  the  case,  and  frankly  acknowledge 
bankruptcy  utter  and  fraudulent,  nothing  could  be 
so  hopeful.  The  supreme  powers  are  infinitely 
above  reckoning  with  us  for  our  shortcomings,  if 
we  would  only  have  the  manliness  to  confess  spir- 
itual insolvency,  and  not  seek  any  longer  to  hide 
it  from  their  eyes  and  our  own  under  these  trans- 
parent monkey-shines  of  a  mock  devotion,  under 
this  perpetual  promise  to  pay  which  never  comes 
to  maturity,  but  gets  renewed  from  Sunday  to  Sun- 
day in  seada  secidoriirn.  God  does  not  need  our 
labored  civility,  and  must  long  ere  this  have  sick- 
ened of  our  vapid  doffing  of  the  hat  to  him  as  we 
pass.  He  seeks  our  solid  advantage,  not  our  ridi- 
culous patronage.  He  desires  our  living,  not  our 
professional,  humility ;  and  he  desires  it  only  for 
our  sakes,  not  his  own.  He  would  fashion  us 
into  the  similitude  of  his  perfect  love,  only  that 
we  might  enjoy  the  unspeakable  delights  of  his 
sympathetic  fellowship.  If  he  once  saw  us  to  be 
thus  spontaneously  disposed  towards  him,  thus 
genuinely  quahfied  for  the  immortal  participation 
of  his  power  and  blessedness,  he  would  I  am  sure 
be  more  than  content  never  to  get  a  genuflexion 
from  us  again  while  the  world  lasted,  nor  hear 
another  of  our  dreary  litanies  while  sheep  bleat 
and  calves  bellow,  "i 

•  Substance  and  Shadow,  p.  520. 


104  INTRODUCTION. 

On  the  principle  of  corniptio  optimonim  pessima, 
it  was  natural  that  if  the  churches  in  general 
should  in  Mr.  James's  eyes  have  sold  themselves 
to  the  devil,  the  arch-sinners  in  this  respect  should 
be  the  Swedenborgian  congregations,  who,  if  any, 
might  be  expected  to  know  better.  He  accord- 
ingly never  fails  to  lash  them  with  his  heartiest 
invective, — with  what  degree  of  justice  or  injus- 
tice, it  is  beyond  my  power  to  say.  In  the  larger 
work  in  the  present  volume  they  have  a  chapter 
devoted  to  themselves.  And  here  is  a  shorter 
extract,  which  will  show  the  writer  in  his  best 
denunciatory  vein :  — 

"  The  Swedenborgian  sect  assumes  to  be  the  New 
Jerusalem,  which  is  the  figurative  name  used  in  the 
Apocalypse  to  denote  God's  perfected  spiritual 
work  in  human  nature ;  and  under  this  tremendous 
designation  it  is  content  to  employ  itself  in  doing 
—  what?  why,  in  pouring  new  wine  into  old  bot- 
tles, with  such  a  preternatural  solicitude  for  the 
tenacity  of  the  bottles  as  necessitates  an  altogether 
comical  indifference  to  the  quality  of  the  wine. 
New  wine  cannot  safely  go  into  old  bottles  but 
upon  one  condition,  which  is  that  the  wine  had 
previously  become  swipes,  or  was  originally  very 
small  beer.  In  fact,  the  Swedenborgian  sect,  viewed 
as  to  its  essential  aims,  though  of  course  not  as  to 


introduction:  105 

its  professed  ones,  is  only  on  the  part  of  its  movers 
a  strike  for  higher  wages,  — that  is,  for  higher  eccle- 
siastical consideration  than  the  older  sects  enjoy 
at  the  popular  hands.  And  like  all  strikes,  it  will 
probably  succumb  at  last  to  the  immense  stores 
of  fat  (or  popular  respect)  traditionally  accumu- 
lated under  the  ribs  of  the  old  organizations,  and 
enabling  them  to  hybernate  through  any  stress  of 
cold  weather  merely  by  sucking  their  thumbs,  or 
without  assimilating  any  new  material.  No  doubt 
the  insurgents  impoverish  the  older  sects  to  the 
extent  of  their  own  bulk;  but  they  do  not  sub- 
stantially affect  them  in  popular  regard,  because 
the  people,  as  a  rule,  care  little  for  truth,  but  much 
for  the  good  that  animates  it ;  very  little  for  dog- 
mas, but  very  much  for  that  undeniably  human 
substance  which  underlies  all  dogmas,  and  makes 
them  savory,  whether  technically  sound  or  un- 
sound. And  here  the  new  sect  is  at  a  striking 
disadvantage  with  all  its  more  ancient  competitors ; 
for  these  are  getting  ashamed  of  their  old  narrow- 
ness, and  are  gradually  expanding  into  some  show 
of  sympathy  with  human  want.  The  sect  of  the 
soi-disant  New  Jerusalem,  on  the  other  hand, 
deliberately  empties  itself  of  all  interest  in  the 
hallowed  struggle  which  society  is  everywhere 
making  for  her  very  existence  against  established 
injustice  and  sanctified  imposture,  in  order  to  con- 


1 06  INTR  OD  UC  TION. 

centrate  its  energy  and  prudence  upon  the  washing 
and  dressing,  upon  the  larding  and  stuffing,  upon 
the  embalming  and  perfuming,  of  its  own  invinci- 
bly squalid  little  corpus.  This  Pharisaic  spirit,  the 
spirit  of  separatism  or  sect,  is  the  identical  spirit  of 
hell ;  and  to  attempt  compassing  any  consideration 
for  oneself  at  the  Divine  hands  by  making  oneself  to 
differ  from  other  people,  or  claiming  a  higher  di- 
vine sanctity  than  they  enjoy,  is  to  encounter  the 
only  sure  damnation.  .  .  .  Let  the  reader,  what- 
ever else  he  may  fairly  or  foolishly  conclude  against 
Swedenborg,  acquit  him  point-blank  of  countenan- 
cing this  abject  ecclesiastical  drivel."  ^ 

Thus  did  the  sentiment  of  God's  impartial  in- 
dwelling in  all  humanity  harden  Mr.  James's  heart 
against  all  places  where  the  "  foolish  babble  of 
individual  moralism "  is  preached,  and  make  him 
unforgiving  to  whatever  bore  the  name  of  Church. 
In  setting  forth  his  philosophy  up  to  this  point, 
I  have  made  no  reference  to  Christianity  at  all. 
Yet  a  Christian  he  was,  and  a  most  devout  one, 
after  his  own  fashion,  —  an  abject  Christian,  as  a 
clergyman  in  Boston  called  him  at  the  time  of 
his  death.  I  confess,  though,  that  I  am  myself 
unable  to  see  any  radical  and  essential  necessity 
for  the  mission  of  Christ  in  his  scheme  of  the 
'  Secret  of  Swedenborg,  p.  209. 


INTRODUCTION.  10/ 

universe.  A  "  fall "  there  is,  and  a  redemption  ; 
but  with  his  view  of  the  solidarity  of  man,  we 
are  all  redeemers  of  the  total  order  so  far  as  we 
open  ourselves  each  in  his  little  measure  to  the 
spirit  of  God.  Our  state  reverberates  through  the 
whole  spiritual  world,  and  helps  the  construction 
of  that  "  society "  which  is  the  race's  redeemed 
form.  All  the  accounts  he  gives  of  Christ  do  but 
represent  him  in  this  function,  in  which  in  lesser 
degree  all  may  share.  I  cannot  help  thinking  that 
if  my  father  had  been  born  outside  the  pale  of 
Christendom,  he  might  perfectly  well  have  brought 
together  all  the  other  elements  of  his  system,  much 
as  it  stands  now,  yet  laid  comparatively  little  stress 
on  Christ.  Still,  the  point  is  an  obscure  one,  and 
I  will  let  the  author  speak  for  himself. 

He  speaks  of  Christ  in  a  great  many  places,  — 
always  with  the  following  tenor :  — 

"  To  suppose  that  the  universal  Father  of  man- 
kind cared  for  the  Jew  one  jot  more  than  for  the 
Gentile,  and  that  he  cared  for  one  Jew  also  more 
than  for  another,  actually  intending  to  give  both  the 
former  and  the  latter  an  endless  earthly  dominion, 
was  manifestly  to  blacken  the  Divine  character,  and 
pervert  it  to  the  inflammation  of  every  diabolic  am- 
bition. And  yet  this  was  that  literal  form  of  the 
Jewish  hope  to  which  Christ  was  born.     The  inno- 


I08  INTRODUCTION. 

cent  babe  opened  his  eyes  upon  mother  and  father, 
brother  and  sister,  neighbor  and  friend,  ruler  and 
priest,  stupidly  agape  at  the  marvels  which  her- 
alded his  birth ;  ^  and  no  doubt,  as  his  inteUigence 

1  A  word  about  Mr.  James's  attitude  towards  Biblical  criticism 
is  here  not  out  of  place.  With  the  education  he  had,  and  with 
the  tenacity  of  his  feelings,  it  was  quite  impossible  he  should 
ever  have  ceased  to  regard  the  Scriptures  as  inspired  books. 
And  yet  the  atmosphere  of  Aiifkldning  in  which  he  lived  forbade 
him  to  keep  unaltered  that  simple  mode  of  regarding  these  wri- 
tings which  had  satisfied  his  youth.  He  finally  drifted  into  a  state 
of  mind  on  the  subject  which  was  neither  credulous  nor  ration- 
alistic, and  not  easy  for  another  person  to  defend.  There  is  a 
chapter  ad  hoc  in  the  work  to  which  this  is  an  introduction ;  and 
this  quotation  will  meanwhile  stop  the  gap  :  — 

"  I  confess  for  my  part  that  I  should  as  soon  think  of  spitting 
upon  my  mother's  grave,  or  offering  any  other  offence  to  her  stain- 
less memory,  as  of  questioning  any  of  the  Gospel  facts.  And  this, 
not  because  I  regard  them  as  literally  or  absolutely  true,  —  for  the 
whole  realm  of  fact  is  as  far  beneath  that  of  truth  as  earth  is  be- 
neath heaven,  —  but  simply  because  they  furnish  the  indispensable 
WORD,  or  master-key,  to  our  interpretation  of  God's  majestic 
revelation  of  himself  in  human  nature.  When,  accordingly,  I  am 
asked  whether  I  believe  in  the  literal  facts  of  Christ's  birth  from 
a  virgin,  his  resurrection  from  death,  his  ascension  into  heaven, 
and  so  forth,  I  feel  constrained  to  reply  that  I  neither  believe 
in  them  nor  disbelieve,  because  the  sphere  of  fact  is  the  sphere 
of  men's  knowledge  exclusively,  and  therefore  invites  neither 
belief  nor  disbelief;  but  that  I  have  a  most  profound,  even  a 
heartfelt  conviction  of  the  truth  which  they,  and  they  alone,  re- 
veal, —  namely,  the  truth  of  God's  essentially  hutnan  perfection,  and, 
as  implied  in  that,  the  amazing  truth  of  His  natural  or  adventitious 
manhood;  which  conviction  keeps  me  blessedly  indifferent  to, 
and  utterly  unvexed  by,  the  cheap  and  frivolous  scepticism  with 
which  so  many  of  our  learned  modern  pundits  assail  them.  I  have 
not  the  least  reverence  nor  even  respect  for  the  facts  in  question, 


INTRODUCTION.  IO9 

dawned,  he  lent  a  naturally  complacent  ear  to  the 
promises  of  personal  advancement  and  glory  they 
showered  upon  him.  He  sucked  in  the  subtlest 
spiritual  poison  with  every  swallow  of  his  mother's 
milk;  and  his  very  religion  bound  him,  so  far  as 
human  probabilities  went,  to  become  an  unmiti- 
gated devil.  I  find  no  trace  of  any  man  in  history 
being  subject  to  the  temptations  that  beset  this 
truest  of  men.  I  find  no  trace  of  any  other  man 
who  felt  himself  called  upon  by  the  tenderest 
human  love  to  loathe  and  disavow  the  proud  and 
yearning  bosom  that  bore  him.  I  find  no  other 
man  in  history  whose  profound  reverence  for  infi- 
nite goodness  and  truth  drove  him  to  renounce  the 
religion  of  his  fathers,  simply  because  that  religion 
contemplated  as  its  issue  his  own  supreme  aggran- 
dizement; and  whose  profound  love  to  man  drove 
him  to  renounce  every  obligation  of  patriotism, 
simply  because  these  obligations  were  plainly  co- 
incident with  the  supremest  and  subtlest  inspira- 
tions of  his  own  self-love.  No  doubt  many  a  man 
has  renounced  his  traditional  creed  because  it  as- 
sociated him  with  the  obloquy  and  contempt  of 
his    nation,  or   stood  in   the  way   of  his  personal 

save  as  basing  or  ultimating  this  grand  creative  or  spiritual  truth  ; 
and  while  the  truth  stands  to  my  apprehension,  I  shall  be  serenely 
obdurate  to  the  learned  reasonings  of  any  of  my  contemporaries 
in  regard  to  the  facts,  whether  pro  or  con."  —  Society  the  Redeetned 
Form  of  Man,  p.  293. 


IIO  INTRODUCTION. 

ambition ;  and  so  no  doubt  many  a  man  has  ab- 
jured his  country,  because  it  disclaimed  his  title 
and  ability  to  rule.  In  short,  a  thousand  men  can 
be  found  every  day  who  do  both  of  these  things 
from  the  instinct  of  self-love.  But  the  eternal 
peculiarity  of  the  Christian  fact  is,  that  Christ  did 
them  utterly  without  the  aid  of  that  tremendous 
lever,  actually  while  it  was  undermining  his  force, 
and  subjecting  him  to  ceaseless  death.  He  dis- 
credited his  paternal  gods  simply  because  they 
were  bent  upon  doing  him  unlimited  honor;  and 
shrank  from  kindred  and  countrymen,  only  because 
they  were  intent  upon  rendering  him  unparalleled 
gratitude  and  benediction.  What  a  mere  obscenity 
every  great  name  in  history  confesses  itself  beside 
this  spotless  Judean  youth,  who  in  the  thickest 
night  of  time,  —  unhelped  by  priest  or  ruler,  by 
friend  or  neighbor,  by  father  or  mother,  by  brother 
or  sister;  helped,  in  fact,  if  we  may  so  consider  it, 
only  by  the  dim  expectant  sympathy  of  that  hun- 
gry rabble  of  harlots  and  outcasts  who  furnished 
his  inglorious  retinue,  and  still  further  drew  upon 
him  the  ferocious  scorn  of  all  that  was  devout  and 
honorable  and  powerful  in  his  nation, — yet  let  in 
eternal  daylight  upon  the  soul,  by  steadfastly  ex- 
panding in  his  private  spirit  to  the  dimensions  of 
universal  humanity,  so  bringing,  for  the  first  time 
in  history,   the  finite  human  bosom  into   perfect 


INTRODUCTION.  I  1 1 

experimental  accord  with  the  infinite  Divine  love. 
For  my  part,  I  am  free  to  declare  that  I  find  the 
conception  of  any  Divinity  superior  to  this  radiant 
human  form  inexpressibly  treasonable  to  my  own 
manhood.  In  fact,  I  do  not  hesitate  to  say  that  I 
find  the  orthodox  and  popular  conception  of  Deity 
to  be  in  the  comparison  a  mere  odious  stench  in 
the  nostrils,  against  which  I  here  indite  my  exuber- 
ant and  eternal  protest.  I  shall  always  cherish  the 
most  hearty  and  cheerful  atheism  towards  every 
deity  but  him  who  has  illustrated  my  own  nature 
with  such  resplendent  power  as  to  make  me  feel 
that  Man  henceforth  is  the  only  name  of  honor, 
and  that  any  God  out  of  the  strictest  human  pro- 
portions, any  God  with  essentially  disproportionate 
aims  and  ends  to  man,  is  an  unmixed  superfluity 
and  nuisance."  ^ 

1  Christianity  the  Logic  of  Creation,  p.  217.  The  Angel,  Mr. 
James  says  in  another  place,  could  not  do  the  work  Christ  did, 
—  the  work  of  reconciling  man's  self-love  with  God's  pure  love,  — 
"  because  his  entire  vitality  proceeds  not  upon  the  reconciliation 
of  self-love  with  higher  loves,  but  upon  its  forcible  expulsion, 
and  even,  if  that  were  possible,  its  extinction.  But  in  the  bosom 
of  Jesus,  exposed  through  the  letter  of  his  national  hope  to  the 
boundless  influx  of  every  selfish  lust,  and  yet  persistently  subju- 
gating such  lust  to  the  inspirations  of  universal  love,  the  requisite 
basis  of  union  was  at  last  found  ;  and  infinite  Wisdom  compassed 
at  length  a  direct  and  adequate  access  to  the  most  finite  of  intelli- 
gences. ...  In  his  sublime  and  steadfast  soul,  I  say,  the  mar- 
riage of  the  Divine  and  Human  was  at  last  perfectly  consummated ; 
so  that  thenceforth  the  infinite  and  eternal  expansion  of  our  nature 


112  INTRODUCTION. 

The  reader  ought  now  to  be  able  to  judge  for 
himself  whether  the  works  of  Henry  James  deserve 
further  study  on  his  part.  For  myself,  nothing 
could  be  so  agreeable  as  to  believe  that  this  un- 
pretending introduction  might  lead  a  larger  public 
to  open  the  writings  of  which  it  treats.  Although 
their  author,  as  will  have  been  noted,  gives  such 
ample  credit  to  Swedenborg  as  the  source  of  his 
opinions,  I  have  all  along  spoken  of  him  as  an  ori- 
ginal thinker,  whose  philosophy  was  underived. 
Many  disciples  of  Swedenborg,  wielding  high  au- 
thority, say  there  is  no  warrant  in  the  master's  pages 
for  Mr.  James's  views.  It  is  certain,  to  say  the  very 
least,  that  Mr.  James  has  given  to  the  various  ele- 
ments in  Swedenborg's  teaching  an  extremely  dif- 
ferent accentuation  and  perspective  relation  to  each 
other,  from  anything  other  readers  have  been  able 
to  find.  In  Swedenborg,  as  in  other  writers,  much 
must   count   for   slag,  and  the  question  "  what  is 

tecame  not  merely  possible,  but  most  strictly  inevitable.  Accor- 
dingly, ever  since  that  period,  husband  and  father,  lover  and 
friend,  patriot  and  citizen,  priest  and  king,  have  been  gradually 
assuming  more  human  dimensions,  have  been  gradually  putting 
on  glorified  lineaments  ;  or,  what  is  the  same  thing,  the  univer- 
sal heart  of  man  has  been  learning  to  despise  and  disown  all 
absolute  sanctities,  —  not  merely  our  threadbare  human  sanctities, 
sacerdotal  and  regal,  conjugal  and  paternal,  but  also  every  the 
most  renowned  Divine  sanctity  itself,  whose  bosom  is  not  the 
abode  of  the  widest,  tenderest,  most  patient  and  unswerving  hu- 
man love."  —  Christianity  the  Logic  oj  Creation,  p.  200. 


INTRODUCTION.  II3 

the  real  Swedenborg,"  will  naturally  be  solved  by- 
different  students  in  different  ways.  Such  being 
the  case,  and  I  being  personally  entitled  to  no 
opinion,  I  have  thought  it  best  to  ignore  the  name 
of  Swedenborg  altogether  in  the  previous  pages; 
not  meaning  by  this  to  prejudge  the  question,  or 
attribute  to  my  father  an  originality  he  would  have 
disclaimed,  but  wishing  merely  to  keep  the  expo- 
sition as  short  and  uncomplicated  as  I  could. 

A  word  of  comment  after  so  much  exposition 
may  not  be  out  of  place.  Common-sense  theism, 
the  popular  religion  of  our  European  race,  has, 
through  all  its  apparent  variations,  remained  es- 
sentially faithful  to  pluralism,  one  might  almost 
say  to  polytheism.  Neither  Judaism  nor  Chris- 
tianity could  tend  to  alter  this  result,  or  make  us 
generally  see  the  world  in  any  other  light  than 
as  a  collection  of  beings  which,  however  they 
might  have  arisen,  are  now  severally  and  substan- 
tively there,  and  the  important  thing  about  whom 
is  their  practical  relations  with  each  other.  God, 
the  Devil,  Christ,  the  Saints,  and  we,  are  some  of 
these  beings.  Whatever  monistic  and  pantheistic 
metaphysics  may  have  crept  into  the  history  of 
Christianity  has  been  confined  to  epochs,  sects, 
and  individuals.  For  the  great  mass  of  men,  the 
practical  fact   of  pluralism  has   been  a  sufficient 

8 


114  INTRODUCTION. 

basis  for  the  religious  life,  and  the  ultra-phe- 
nomenal unity  has  been  nothing  more  than  a  lip- 
formula. 

And  naive  as  in  the  eyes  of  metaphysics  such 
a  view  may  seem,  finite  and  short  of  vision  and 
lacking  dignity  from  the  intellectual  point  of  view, 
no  philosopher,  however  subtle,  can  afford  to  treat 
it  with  disdain  ;  unless,  perhaps,  he  be  ready  to  say 
that  the  spirit  of  Europe  is  all  wrong,  and  that  of 
Asia  right.  God,  treated  as  a  principle  among 
others,  —  prinms  hiter  pares,  —  has  warmth  and 
blood  and  personality;  is  a  concrete  being  whom 
it  does  not  take  a  scholar  to  love  and  make  sacrifi- 
ces and  die  for,  as  history  shows.  Being  almost 
like  a  personage  in  a  drama,  the  lightning  of 
dramatic  interest  can  play  from  him  and  about 
him,  and  rivet  human  regard. 

The  "  One  and  Only  Being,"  however,  the  Uni- 
versal Substance,  the  Soul  and  Spirit  of  Things, 
the  First  Principle  of  monistic  metaphysics,  call 
it  by  names  as  theological  and  reverential  as  we 
will,  always  seems,  it  must  be  confessed,  a  pale,  ab- 
stract, and  impersonal  conception  compared  with 
that  of  the  eternal  living  God,  worshipped  by  the 
incalculable  majority  of  our  race.  Such  a  monis- 
tic principle  never  can  be  worshipped  by  a  majority 
of  our  race  until  the  race's  mental  constitution 
chanjie. 


INTR  OD  UCTION.  1 1 5 

Now,  the  great  peculiarity  of  Mr.  James's  con- 
ception of  God  is,  that  it  is  monistic  enough  to 
satisfy  the  philosopher,  and  yet  warm  and  living 
and  dramatic  enough  to  speak  to  the  heart  of  the 
common  pluralistic  man.  This  double  character 
seems  to  make  of  this  conception  an  entirely  fresh 
and  original  contribution  to  religious  thought.  I 
call  it  monistic  enough  to  satisfy  the  metaphysi- 
cian, for  although  Mr.  James's  system  is  anything 
but  a  bald  monism,  yet  it  makes  of  God  the  one 
and  only  active  principle ;  and  that  is  practically 
all  that  monism  demands.  Our  experience  makes 
us,  it  is  true,  acquainted  with  an  other  of  God,  in 
our  own  selfhood ;  but  for  Mr.  James,  that  other, 
that  selfhood,  has  no  positive  existence,  being 
really  naught,  a  provisional  phantom-soul  breathed 
by  God's  love  into  mere  logical  negation.  And 
that  a  monism,  thus  mitigated,  can  speak  to  the 
common  heart,  a  perusal  of  those  pages  in  which 
Mr.  James  portrays  creation  on  God's  part  as  an 
infinite  passion  of  self-surrender  to  his  opposite, 
will  convince  any  reader.  Anthropomorphism  and 
metaphysics  seem  for  the  first  time  in  these  pages 
to  go  harmoniously  hand  in  hand.  The  same  sun 
that  lights  up  the  frozen  summits  of  abstraction, 
lights  up  life's  teeming  plain,  —  and  no  chasm, 
but  an  open  highway  lies  between. 

The  extraordinary  power  and   richness   of  this 


Il6  INTRODUCTION. 

conception  of  the  Deity  ought,  one  would  say, 
to  make  Mr.  James's  writings  indispensable  to 
students  of  religious  thought.  Within  their  com- 
pass, each  old  element  receives  a  fresh  expression, 
each  old  issue  a  startling  turn.  It  is  hard  to  be- 
lieve, that,  when  they  are  better  known,  they  will 
not  come  to  be  counted  among  the  few  truly 
original  theological  works  which  our  language 
owns.  So  that  even  those  who  think  that  no  theo- 
logical thought  can  be  coticlusive  w\\\,  for  this  rea- 
son, perhaps,  not  refuse  to  them  a  lasting  place 
in  literature. 

Their  most  serious  enemy  will  be  the  philoso- 
phic pluralist.  The  naif  practical  pluralism  of 
popular  religion  ought,  as  I  have  said,  to  have  no 
quarrel  with  the  monism  they  teach.  There  is 
however  a  pluralism  hardened  by  reflection,  and 
deliberate ;  a  pluralism  which,  in  face  of  the  old 
mystery  of  the  One  and  the  Many,  has  vainly 
sought  peace  in  identification,  and  ended  by  tak- 
ing sides  against  the  One.  It  seems  to  me  that 
the  deepest  of  all  philosophic  differences  is  that 
between  this  pluralism  and  all  forms  of  monism 
whatever.  Apart  from  analytic  and  intellectual 
arguments,  pluralism  is  a  view  to  which  we  all 
practically  incline  when  in  the  full  and  successful 
exercise  of  our  moral  energy.  The  life  we  then 
feel  tingling  through   us  vouches  sufficiently  for 


INTRODUCTION.  II7 

itself,  and  nothing  tempts  us  to  refer  it  to  a  higher 
source.  Being,  as  we  are,  ja  match  for  whatever 
evils  actually  confront  us,  we  rather  prefer  to  think 
of  them  as  endowed  with  reality,  and  as  being 
absolutely  alien,  but,  we  hope,  subjugable  powers. 
Of  the  day  of  our  possible  impotency  we  take  no 
thought;  and  we  care  not  to  make  such  a  synthesis 
of  our  weakness  and  our  strength,  and  of  the  good 
and  evil  fortunes  of  the  world,  as  will  reduce  them 
all  to  fractions,  with  a  common  denominator,  of 
some  less  fluctuating  Unity,  enclosing  some  less 
partial  and  more  certain  form  of  Good.  The  feel- 
ing of  action,  in  short,  makes  us  turn  a  deaf  ear  to 
the  thought  of  being ;  and  this  deafness  and  insen- 
sibility may  be  said  to  form  an  integral  part  of 
what  in  popular  phrase  is  known  as  "  healthy- 
mindedness."  Any  absolute  moralism  must  needs 
be  such  a  healthy- minded  pluralism;  and  in  a 
pluralistic  philosophy  the  healthy-minded  moral- 
ist will  always  feel  himself  at  home. 

But  healthy-mindedness  is  not  the  whole  of  life ; 
and  the  morbid  view,  as  one  by  contrast  may  call 
it,  asks  for  a  philosophy  very  different  from  that 
of  absolute  moralism.  To  suggest  personal  will 
and  effort  to  one  "  all  sicklied  o'er  "  with  the  sense 
of  weakness,  of  helpless  failure,  and  of  fear,  is 
to  suggest  the  most  horrible  of  things  to  him. 
What  he  craves  is  to  be  consoled  in  his  very  im- 


Il8  INTRODUCTION. 

potence,  to  feel  that  the  Powers  of  the  Universe 
recognize  and  secure  him,  all  passive  and  failing 
as  he  is.  Well,  we  are  all  potentially  such  sick 
men.  The  sanest  and  best  of  us  are  of  one  clay 
with  lunatics  and  prison-inmates.  And  whenever 
we  feel  this,  such  a  sense  of  the  vanity  of  our 
voluntary  career  comes  over  us,  that  all  our  mo- 
rality appears  but  as  a  plaster  hiding  a  sore  it  can 
never  cure,  and  all  our  well-doing  as  the  hollowest 
substitute  for  that  v^&W-being  that  our  lives  ought 
to  be  grounded  in,  but,  alas !  are  not.  This  well- 
being  is  the  object  of  the  religious  demand,  —  a 
demand  so  penetrating  and  unassuageable  that 
no  consciousness  of  such  occasional  and  outward 
well-doing  as  befalls  the  human  lot  can  ever  give 
it  satisfaction.  On  the  other  hand,  to  satisfy  the 
religious  demand  is  to  deny  the  demands  of  the 
moralist.  The  latter  wishes  to  feel  the  empirical 
goods  and  evils,  on  the  recognition  of  which  his 
activity  proceeds,  to  be  real  goods  and  evils,  with 
their  distinction  absolutely  preserved.  So  that  of 
religion  and  moralism,  the  morbid  and  the  healthy 
view,  it  may  be  said  that  what  is  meat  to  the  one 
is  the  other's  poison.  Any  absolute  moralism  is  a 
pluralism;  any  absolute  religion  is  a  monism.  It 
shows  the  depth  of  Mr.  James's  religious  insight 
that  he  first  and  last  and  always  made  moralism 
the  target  of  his  hottest  attack,  and  pitted  religion 


INTRODUCTION.  1 19 

and  it  against  each  other  as  enemies,  of  whom  one 
must  die  utterly,  if  the  other  is  to  Hve  in  genuine 
form.  The  accord  of  moraUsm  and  rehgion  is 
superficial,  their  discord  radical.  Only  the  deep- 
est thinkers  on  both  sides  see  that  one  must  go. 
Popular  opinion  gets  over  the  difficulty  by  com- 
promise and  contradiction,  and  the  shifting,  ac- 
cording to  its  convenience,  of  its  point  of  view. 
Such  inconsistency  cannot  be  called  a  solution  of 
the  matter,  though  it  practically  seems  to  work 
with  most  men  well  enough.  Must  not  the  more 
radical  ways  of  thinking,  after  all,  appeal  to  the 
same  umpire  of  practice  for  corroboration  of  their 
more  consistent  views?  Is  the  religious  tendency 
or  the  moralistic  tendency  on  the  whole  the  most 
serviceable  to  man's  life,  taking  the  latter  in  the 
largest  way?  By  their  fruits  ye  shall  know  them. 
Solvitur  ambulando  ;  for  the  decision  we  must  per- 
haps await  the  day  of  judgment.  Meanwhile,  the 
battle  is  about  us,  and  we  are  its  combatants,  stead- 
fast or  vacillating,  as  the  case  may  be.  It  will  be 
a  hot  fight  indeed  if  the  friends  of  philosophic 
moralism  should  bring  to  the  service  of  their  ideal, 
so  different  from  that  of  my  father,  a  spirit  even 
remotely  resembling  the  life-long  devotion  of  his 
faithful  heart. 

W.  J. 


immortal   Life: 

ILLUSTRATED   IN    A    BRIEF 

AUTOBIOGRAPHIC    SKETCH 

OF   THE    LATE 

STEPHEN    DEWHURST. 

EDITED,    WITH    AN    INTRODUCTION, 
By  henry  JAMES. 


PREFACE. 


It  is  now  a  goodly  number  of  years  since  I  was  a 

student  of  the  Theological  Seminary  at ,  and 

there  made  the  acquaintance  of  the  author  of  the 
following  Memoir.  We  belonged  to  the  same  class, 
lodged  in  the  same  house,  had  chanced  to  inherit 
some  family  friendships  in  common,  were  of  similar 
intellectual  tastes,  and  above  all  suffered,  as  we 
thought,  both  alike  an  ardent  thirst  of  Divine  truth. 
Here  obviously  were  sufficient  grounds  for  a  close 
intimacy  during  our  Seminary  course ;  and  I  may 
accordingly  say,  that,  save  in  vacations,  scarcely  a 
day  passed  over  our  heads  without  a  friendly  en- 
counter and  comparison  of  ideas  and  observations. 
Not  only,  as  I  have  said,  were  we  both  of  us  su- 
premely interested  as  we  conceived  in  the  pursuit 
of  truth,  but  we  were  also  both  of  us  somewhat  dis- 
affected both  by  temperament  and  culture  to  ritual 
or  ceremonial  views  of  it.  And  this  circumstance 
could  hardly  fail,  in  an  atmosphere  so  unpropitious 
to  men's  unascetic  or  spiritual  aspirations  as  that  of 
the  Seminary  naturally  was,  to  throw  us  upon  each 


124  PREFACE. 

Other's  support  and  countenance,  and  lead  us  in- 
deed sedulously  to  cultivate  each  other's  sym- 
pathetic regard. 

It  costs  me  nothing  to  admit  that  my  friend, 
both  intellectually  and  morally,  was  of  a  more  ro- 
bust make  than  me.  Indeed,  he  contrasted  sig- 
nally with  the  entire  mass  of  student  life  in  the 
Seminary,  by  the  almost  total  destitution  which  his 
religious  character  exhibited  of  the  dramatic  ele- 
ment, —  that  element  of  unconscious  hypocrisy 
which  Christ  stigmatized  in  the  religious  zealots  of 
his  day,  and  which  indeed  seems  to  be  inseparable 
from  the  religious  profession.  The  ordinary  theo- 
logical student,  especially,  has  a  fatal  professional 
conscience  from  the  start,  which  vitiates  his  intellec- 
tual integrity.  He  is  personally  mortgaged  to  an 
institution  —  that  of  the  pulpit — which  is  reputed 
sacred,  and  is  all  the  more  potent  in  its  influence 
upon  his  natural  freedom  on  that  account ;  so  that 
even  the  free  sphere  of  his  manners  is  almost  sure 
to  lose  whatever  frank  spontaneous  flavor  it  may 
by  inheritance  once  have  had,  and  become  simply 
servile  to  convention.  My  friend  was  an  exception 
to  the  rule.  His  reverence  for  the  Divine  name  was 
so  tender  and  hallowed  as  to  render  him  to  a  very 
great  extent  indifferent  to  the  distinction  so  loudly 
emphasized  throughout  the  Seminary  between  the 
church  and  the  world.     I  was  led  very  early  in  our 


PREFACE.  125 

intercourse  to  observe,  that,  however  justly  sensi- 
tive his  intellect  was  to  every  consideration  grow- 
ing out  of  the  distinction  between  good  and  evil 
in  men's  actual  conduct,  he  was  yet  practically  in- 
sensible to  the  pretension  of  a  distinctively  moral 
righteousness  in  them  as  the  ground  of  their  reli- 
gious hope.  The  disproportion  between  finite  and 
infinite  seemed  in  fact  so  overwhelming  to  his 
imagination,  as  to  make  it  impossible  to  him  to 
deem  any  man  in  himself  vitally  nearer  to  God 
than  any  other  man. 

I  had  been  at  first  somewhat  astonished,  not  to 
say  disconcerted,  by  this  cosmopolitan  ease  and 
afifability  on  the  part  of  my  friend  in  all  the  range 
of  his  religious  conscience ;  but  they  grew  erelong 
extremely  soothing  and  educative  to  me.  I  had 
been  so  impoverished  intellectually  upon  the  ordi- 
nary diet  of  the  churches,  made  up  of  the  most  lit- 
eral and  abject  husks  of  Christian  doctrine,  that 
I  had  as  yet  almost  no  suspicion  of  the  spiritual 
or  interior  contents  of  Revelation,  and  was  in  fact 
as  far  as  any  heathen  could  well  be  from  recogniz- 
ing the  truth  of  God's  NATURAL  HUMANITY,  or 
identifying  the  honor  of  his  name  with  the  rever- 
ence of  universal  man.  To  be  sure,  the  Christian 
letter  set  God  before  me  first  as  a  crucified  and 
then  as  a  glorified  natural  man ;  and  in  so  doing 
spiritually  affirmed  him  to  be  a  working  force  of 


126  PREFACE. 

infinite  love,  wisdom,  and  power  within  the  very 
narrowest  precincts  of  the  human  form.  But  who 
is  ever  intellectually  encouraged  or  even  allowed 
by  the  Church  to  universalize  the  Christian  truth, 
and  invest  it  with  strictly  humanitary  dimensions? 
Thus  Christ  had  always  been  as  much  of  an  idol  to 
my  imagination  under  the  Church's  tuition,  as  if  he 
had  been  literally  hewn  out  of  stone  ;  and  at  my 
best  I  was  a  mere  deist  under  the  profession  of  the 
Christian  name,  as  liable  accordingly  as  any  mere 
deist  to  the  most  sensuous  imaginations  and  reason- 
ings about  Divine  things.  In  short,  I  had  not  the 
remotest  glimmer  of  an  apprehension  as  yet  that 
God's  providence  in  the  earth  was  a  strictly  crea- 
tive one,  but  on  the  contrary  supposed  that  phase 
of  its  operation  to  have  been  exhausted  long  ages 
ago,  and  to  have  given  place  to  one  essentially 
critical  or  discriminative,  as  ordaining  certain  per- 
sons to  honor  and  others  to  dishonor. 

Familiar  intercourse  with  my  friend  gradually 
enlarged  the  horizon  of  my  faith  also,  and  per- 
manently freed  me  from  this  narrow  and  sensuous 
way  of  looking  at  religious  truth.  I  am  liable,  I 
know,  to  exaggerate  the  impression  his  intellect 
then  made  upon  me,  and  to  give  my  early  reminis- 
cences a  hue  borrowed  from  a  later  day  of  knowl- 
edge. I  shall  be  guarded  therefore  in  what  I  say, 
and   put  down   nothing  which  I   am  sure  was  not 


PREFACE. 


127 


either  overtly  expressed  or  perfectly  implied  in  all 
our  intercourse.  I  am  very  sure,  for  example, 
that  what  first  piqued  my  scientific  curiosity  about 
him  was  the  difficulty  I  had  to  discover,  as  I  have 
already  said,  where  his  secular  consciousness  left 
off  and  his  religious  consciousness  began.  All  his 
discourse  betrayed  such  an  unconscious,  or  at  all 
events  unaffected,  habit  of  spiritualizing  secular 
things  and  secularizing  sacred  things,  that  I  was 
erelong  forced  to  conclude  that  for  his  needs  at 
all  events  the  outward  or  figurative  antagonism 
of  "  the  church  "  and  "  the  world  "  had  more  than 
fulfilled  its  intellectual  uses,  whatever  these  may 
have  been ;  and  that  any  attempt  on  the  part  of 
the  Church  to  perpetuate  and  especially  to  exag- 
gerate such  antagonism  would  infallibly  expose  it 
to  permanent  divine  ignominy.  The  orbit  of  the 
divine  administration  had  been  so  aggrandized  to 
my  friend's  intelligence  by  his  perceiving  its  ends 
to  be  primarily  universal  and  only  derivatively 
particular,  that  he  seemed  indeed  a  man  in  whom 
our  crude  traditional  faith  had  become  to  an  in- 
definite extent  refined  into  spiritual  perception. 
This,  indeed,  was  the  source  of  the  potent  charm 
which  he  exerted  upon  my  imagination, — namely, 
that  all  his  words  were  inwardly  or  livingly  au- 
thenticated, and  so  bore  the  manifest  impress  of 
the   Holy  Ghost.     I  suppose  —  indeed,  I  very  well 


128  PREFACE. 

know — that  to  many  others  at  the  same  time  his 
spirit  appeared  very  z^wholy;  but  I  could  not  long 
doubt  for  my  part  that  his  soul  had  been  touched 
by  a  fire  more  sacred  than  was  ever  kindled  upon 
a  mundane  altar. 

It  is  hardly  necessary  to  say,  after  what  has 
gone  before,  that  my  friend  was  little  addicted  to 
routine.  He  seldom  took  his  seat  at  table,  I  recol- 
lect, before  grace  had  been  said,  and  he  commonly 
rose  from  his  meals  before  the  rest  of  us,  as  if  to 
avoid  its  gratuitous  repetition.  He  had  no  tech- 
nically religious  conversation,  never  initiating  nor 
indeed  encouraging  any  discourse  voluntarily  at- 
tuned to  the  divine  honor ;  yet  he  never  let  fall  a 
word  which  was  not  instinct  with  the  love  of  God 
and  an  unfeigned  reverence  of  mankind.  I  have 
never  known  a  person  whose  affection  and  thought 
were  more  unselfish  than  his,  or  more  largely  mo- 
tived upon  purely  objective  considerations.  I  have 
often  reflected  with  astonishment  since,  that  one 
so  young  should  have  been  so  thoroughly  vastated 
in  the  providence  of  God  of  our  ordinarily  rank 
and  florid  pride  of  moralism.  Our  classmates 
were  unaffectedly  bewildered  by  this  peculiarity, 
as  affording  so  little  purchase  either  to  their  per- 
sonal approbation  or  their  personal  reprobation  of 
its  subject.  I  did  not  know  how  exactly  to  charac- 
terize the  peculiarity  at  the  time ;   but  I  see  now, 


PREFACE.  129 

looking  back,  that  what  distinguished  him  from  us 
all  was  his  social  quality,  — the  frank,  cordial  rec- 
ognition he  always  evinced  of  that  vital  fellowship 
or  equality  between  man  universal  and  man  indi- 
vidual which  is  the  spiritual  fulfilment  or  glorifi- 
cation of  conscience,  and  ends  by  compelling  angel 
and  devil  into  its  equal  subservience. 

I  do  not  know  that  my  friend  was  at  this  time 
so  self-possessed  intellectually,  as  I  am  fain  here 
to  picture  him.  I  do  not  know  that  the  creative 
infinitude  had  at  this  period  stamped  itself  upon 
his  intellect  with  such  commanding  evidence  as  to 
invest  the  entire  moral  history  of  mankind  with  a 
purely  educative  or  representative  worth,  and  turn 
great  heaven  and  hell  themselves  into  a  mere  pro- 
visional or  symbolic  stay,  as  it  were,  of  that  awful 
and  unrecognized  truth.  But  I  have  been  in  the 
habit  of  recalling  so  many  things  he  used  to  say, 
which  seem  to  my  imagination  flushed  with  an  in- 
ward or  living  sense  of  the  creative  presence  in 
Nature,  that  I  can  hardly  help  ascribing  to  him, 
even  at  this  early  date,  a  conscious  intellection  of 
the  truth  of  God's  natural  humanity.  I  think  it 
very  probable,  however,  that  I  do  put  a  breadth 
and  depth  of  intellectual  significance  into  these  re- 
membered facts  greater  than  they  bore  at  the  time 
even  to  his  own  mind ;  and  I  throw  myself  upon 
the  reader's  indulgence  accordingly,  assuring  him 

9 


130  PREFACE. 

that  if  it  be  so,  I  am  anticipating  my  friend's  spir- 
itual growth  by  a  very  few  months  in  any  case,  so 
rapid  was  its  progress. 

I  remember  the  fright  he  once  gave  a  somewhat 
starched  and  complacent  "  brother,"  by  disavowing 
anything  which  might  be  called  anxiety  about  his 
own  proper  destiny  at  the  Divine  hands.  "No 
such  question,"  he  said,  "  any  longer  occupies 
me,  as  whether  I  specifically  am  to  be  damned  or 
saved;  for  I  am  convinced  of  a  breadth  in  the 
Divine  administration  more  than  equal  to  either 
emergency;  that  is,  amply  sufficient  to  keep  me 
from  undue  depression  in  the  former  contingency, 
and  from  undue  elation  in  the  latter.  In  fact,  the 
only  question  to  my  heart  and  mind  is  that  of 
the  race's  salvation,  for  this  is  the  only  question 
identified  with  the  truth  of  the  Divine  name,  as 
that  name  is  revealed  in  the  gospel  of  Jesus 
Christ.  The  controversy  between  Jesus  and  his 
nation  was,  whether  the  Divine  love  was  veritably 
infinite  or  finite  ;  whether  it  embraced  all  mankind, 
or  restricted  itself  to  the  blessing  of  a  particular 
people ;  whether  its  aims,  in  short,  were  broadly 
secular  or  strictly  religious.  At  least  I  so  appre- 
hend the  controversy,  and  I  confess  it  would  pos- 
sess very  little  interest  to  me  if  I  thought  it  admitted 
of  any  narrower  statement ;  if  I  thought,  as  you  do 
for   example,    that   it   turned    upon   the    question 


PREFACE.  131 

whether  or  not  the  righteousness  which  quahfies 
men  for  '  the  kingdom  of  heaven'  is  the  same  with 
that  which  attracts  our  civic  and  religious  hom- 
age. You  easily  perceive,  then,  that  so  long  as  I 
hold  these  views  of  the  gospel  revelation  concern- 
ing God,  my  own  personal  salvation  would  afford  a 
wretched  solace  to  my  wounded  faith  in  him  if  I 
thought  any  other  human  being  capable  of  seri- 
ously prejudicing  himself  at  the  Divine  hands  by 
anything  he  could  possibly  do.  In  short,  if  God. 
as  the  gospel  demonstrates,  be  the  redeemer  and 
saviour  of  the  race,  it  is  all  I  want  to  know  to  keep 
my  faith  in  him  from  ever  becoming  obscured  by 
any  conceivable  issue  of  my  personal  freedom. 
No  thoughtful  person  can  doubt  that  our  freedom 
and  rationality  serve  only  to  mask  the  infinite 
Divine  presence  in  our  nature,  and  constitute  a 
special  guarantee  therefore  on  his  part  that  he 
will  never  be  found  dealing  with  us  in  an  arbitrary 
or  irrational  manner.  As  long  as  I  cherish  this 
confidence  accordingly,  I  should  be  a  downright 
numskull  to  quarrel  with  that  bipolar  aspect  of 
my  nature  on  which  my  personal  consciousness, 
and  all  the  spiritual  hopes  and  aspirations  it  engen- 
ders are  nevertheless  rigidly  conditioned.  If  I 
value  freedom  and  rationality  as  constituting  the 
veritable  Divine  shekinah  upon  the  earth,  I  must 
accept  every  conceivable  issue  they  involve ;  for  it 


132  PREFACE. 

is  childish  to  pretend  to  love  a  law,  and  yet  hate 
its  practical  operation.  For  my  part,  at  all  events, 
I  am  incapable  of  applauding  the  principles  of  the 
Divine  administration  in  the  gross,  and  reprobating 
them  in  detail.  But  this  is  neither  here  nor  there. 
What  I  would  have  you  observe  is  simply  this,  — 
that  I  perceive  a  grandeur  in  the  Christian  reve- 
lation of  the  Divine  name  which,  by  teaching  me 
that  its  aims  are  rigidly  providential  as  guarding  and 
guiding  the  freedom  of  man  ab  intra,  and  never  ab- 
solute as  determining  any  conceivable  issue  of  that 
freedom  ab  extra,  releases  me  from  all  selfish  hopes 
and  fears  towards  God,  and  gives  me  instead  un- 
feigned intellectual  peace.  I  am  quite  as  free  as 
you  can  be  to  admit  how  infinitely  unworthy  I  am 
—  and  every  other  man  no  less  —  of  this  sublime 
knowledge ;  but  so  long  as  it  stands  unchallenged 
to  my  interior  conviction,  you  yourself  can  hardly 
fail  to  perceive  that  my  love  of  good  and  my  aver- 
sion to  evil  must  soon  lose  all  they  possess  of  a 
moral  or  voluntary  quality,  and  put  on  strictly 
spiritual,  or  living  and  spontaneous,  lineaments." 

It  used  to  be  replied  to  my  friend  on  these  occa- 
sions, not  without  heat:  "What  upon  earth  then 
are  you  here  for,  in  this  school  of  tJie  prophets,  if  it 
be  not  to  qualify  yourself  to  win  men  from  the 
slavery  of  evil  to  the  voluntary  service  of  good? 
And  will  it  edify  your  hearers,  think  you,  to  learn 


PREFACE.  133 

from  your  lips,  or  infer  from  your  demeanor,  that 
God  has  no  personal  complacency  in  the  good 
man,  and  no  personal  aversion  to  the  evil  man ; 
and  that  so  far,  therefore,  as  their  outward  fortunes 
are  concerned,  or  their  personal  chances  at  the 
Divine  hand,  they  might  as  well  be  in  hell  as  in 
heaven?" 

I  need  not  say  that  I  always  listened  to  these 
pungent  questionings  of  my  friend  with  very  great 
interest;  for,  although  I  deeply  felt  his  personal 
magnetism,  my  own  intellect  was  as  yet  very  far 
from  any  clear  or  comprehensive  grasp  of  the 
truths  which  constituted  the  manifest  strength  of 
his.  As  well  as  I  can  recall  the  force  of  his  re- 
plies, it  was  substantially  as  follows :  — 

"  I  should  be  sorry  so  to  compromise  the  Divine 
majesty  even  in  thought,  as  to  imagine  it  capable 
of  associating  me  or  you  or  any  one  else  in  the  re- 
sponsibility which  it  and  it  alone  challenges  with 
respect  to  every  man's  spiritual  fortunes.  But  if 
I  really  felt  myself  legitimately  associated  in  any 
such  responsibility,  I  certainly  could  conceive  no 
other  or  better  way  of  influencing  men  than  by 
making  manifest  to  their  consciences  the  truth 
whereby  I  myself  spiritually  live,  —  which  truth 
is  the  universality  of  God's  providence  or  king- 
dom.   You  yourselves  know  quite  as  well  as  I,  —  at 


134  PREFACE. 

least  you  have  the  same  occasion  to  know,  —  that 
the  mass  of  our  ecclesiastical  population  are  of  a 
low  order  of  mind  spiritually;  being  much  more 
moved  by  dread  of  God  than  by  love  to  him,  much 
more  solicitous  for  his  personal  favor  than  sensi- 
tive to  the  honor  of  his  name  or  the  interests  of 
impersonal  goodness  and  truth.  What,  then,  in 
this  state  of  things,  would  you  yourselves  have  me 
do?  Would  you  not  expect  me  frankly  to  confront 
this  spiritual  degradation  of  theirs,  and  so  force 
them  upon  its  ultimate  acknowledgment,  by  persis- 
tently protesting  in  my  own  person  against  the  un- 
worthy hopes  and  fears  they  indulge  towards  God  ? 
Or  would  you  rather  that  I  lend  a  hand  to  perpet- 
uate this  spiritual  insanity  in  them,  by  inflaming 
their  existing  unbelief  of  the  Divine  name? 

"Understand  me  fully.  What  interests  me  in 
human  kind  is  not  its  capacity  to  enjoy  and  suffer, 
for  this  capacity  is  signally  limited  in  all  of  us ; 
but  its  capacity  to  know  God,  and  regulate  its  life 
upon  that  knowledge,  for  here  we  are  all  of  us 
alike  really  unlimited.  For  example,  it  would  give 
me  no  pain  to  learn  at  any  time  that  any  particular 
acquaintance  of  my  own  now  deceased  was  in  hell, 
as  men  say,  nor  any  pleasure  to  learn  that  he  was 
in  heaven ;  because  I  have  not  a  grain  of  belief  in 
any  hell  or  heaven  as  being  objectively  constituted, 
or  as  having  any  existence  apart  from  its  particular 


PREFACE.  135 

subjects.  No  good  man,  —  that  is  to  say,  no  man 
who  is  inwardly  cultivated  out  of  that  supreme 
love  of  self  and  the  world  which  alone  constitutes 
hell  and  makes  its  restraints  appreciable,  —  can 
ever  '  go  to  hell,'  as  we  say.  And  no  evil  man,  — 
that  is  to  say,  no  man  who  is  habitually  indifferent 
to  that  supreme  love  of  God  or  the  neighbor 
which  alone  constitutes  heaven  and  makes  its  free- 
dom enjoyable,  —  can  ever  '  go  to  heaven,'  as  we 
say.  And  as  long  as  the  good  man  is  free  to 
choose  his  own  society,  and  the  evil  man  free  to 
choose  his,  I  have  no  fear  that  either  will  be  ever 
tempted  to  exchange  outward  conditions  with  the 
other.  I  have  no  fear,  in  other  words,  that  either 
will  fancy  himself  out  of  heaven.  I  cannot  imagine 
a  hell  for  any  man  which  is  not  made  such  by  its 
organic  opposition  to  his  subjective  tendencies ; 
nor  a  heaven  which  is  not  made  such  by  its  organic 
agreement  with  those  tendencies.  And  it  seems 
to  me  therefore  sheerly  preposterous  to  talk  of 
heaven  and  hell  as  if  they  were  objectively  consti- 
tuted, or  had  the  least  reality  apart  from  their 
proper  subjects.  A  self-constituted  heaven  and  hell, 
—  that  is  to  say,  a  heaven  and  hell,  which  are  such 
in  themselves  or  absolutely,  and  out  of  relation 
to  each  other,  —  are  a  contradictory  and  therefore 
impossible  conception.  For  two  absolutes  destroy 
each  other.     An   absolute  heaven  would  exclude 


136  PREFACE. 

the  conception  of  anything  opposed  to  itself;  and 
an  absolute  hell  would  do  the  same  thing. 

"Of  three  things,  then,  one.  Either  (i)  heaven 
and  hell,  which,  being  strictly  relative  each  to  the 
other,  confess  themselves  both  alike  subjectively 
or  phenomenally  constituted,  and  therefore  repugn 
all  objective  reality;  or  (2)  an  absolute  heaven, 
which  being  constituted  irrationally,  or  without  re- 
gard to  its  subjects,  disowns  any  proper  subjects, 
and  hence  offers  no  attraction  to  a  rational  imagi- 
nation; or  (3)  an  absolute  hell,  which  being  in  like 
manner  constituted  out  of  all  relation  to  any  proper 
subjects,  offers  no  repulsion  to  a  rational  imagina- 
tion. Of  these  three  conceptions,  I  repeat,  you  are 
logically  bound  to  choose  one.  But  obviously  the 
second  and  third  alternatives  are  not  to  be  enter- 
tained for  a  moment,  as  they  stultify  themselves ; 
and  the  first  alone  remains  to  be  accepted. 

"  But  if  heaven  and  hell  are  thus  demonstrably 
void  of  objective  reality,  as  being  reciprocally  con- 
stituted by  each  other's  subjective  antagonism,  do 
you  not  yourself  think  that  it  is  about  time  to  give 
over  talking  about  them?  Would  it  not  be  better, 
think  you,  to  begin  talking  to  the  world  of  that 
long-neglected  third  interest,  —  the  interest  of  the 
divine  kingdom,  of  God's  promised  reign  of  right- 
eousness or  justice  in  the  earth,  to  whose  evolution 
heaven  and   hell  are  purely  incidental,  and  from 


PREFACE.  137 

which  they  both  alike  derive  all  their   human  or 
philosophic  consequence?" 

This  masculine  insight  of  my  friend  into  the 
philosophy  of  the  gospel,  so  often  coming  to  the 
surface  in  our  little  seminary  collisions,  was,  I  re- 
peat, exceedingly  impressive  to  my  imagination. 
It  could  hardly  help  giving  me  an  immense  per- 
sonal interest  in  him,  and  inflaming  my  curiosity 
to  penetrate  the  secrets  of  his  intellectual  history. 
I  could  not  long  escape  the  conviction  that  his 
intellectual  life  had  flowered  out  of  a  far  deeper 
spiritual  root  than  mine,  and  betrayed  a  very  excep- 
tional moral  experience.  There  was  at  all  times 
a  certain  reserve  in  his  communications  with  me ; 
but  now  and  then  an  air  of  constraint  and  even  of 
anguish  marked  his  attitude  towards  truth,  which 
seemed  to  me  to  indicate  the  presence  of  some  try- 
ing and  bitter  moral  conflict  within.  As  our  inti- 
macy grew,  I  sometimes  hazarded  a  deferential 
inquiry  as  to  the  incidents  of  his  personal  history. 
But  although  his  replies  were  always  courteously 
conceived,  I  felt  for  a  long  time  that  they  were 
intended  to  baffle  curiosity  and  keep  me  to  the 
surface  of  his  experience,  or  what  it  had  in  com- 
mon with  my  own.  I  think,  however,  that  before 
the  end  of  our  career  in  the  seminary  my  friend 
had  begun  to  put  a,  higher  estimate  upon  my  sym- 


138  PREFACE. 

pathy,  inasmuch  as  I  saw  many  signs  of  a  gradual 
breaking  down  of  his  customary  reserve.  I  pre- 
sume, accordingly,  that- if  the  tides  of  our  life  had 
continued  to  flow  together  a  little  longer,  he  would 
have  ended  by  taking  me  into  his  frankest  confi- 
dence. But  as  it  turned  out,  we  had  both  of  us 
come  to  entertain  some  very  fatal  doubts  as  to  the 
received  theories  in  relation  to  the  constitution  of 
the  Church,  —  our  ecclesiastical  guides  holding,  for 
example,  that  the  Church  was  essentially  a  visible 
institution,  defined  and  constituted  mainly  by  the 
possession  and  ministry  of  the  sacraments ;  while 
we  maintained  that  it  was  an  actual  life  of  God 
himself  in  human  nature,  and  not  to  be  cogitated, 
therefore,  apart  from  the  interests  of  universal  jus- 
tice in  the  earth ;  and  this  disagreement  separated 
us  so  much  from  the  ordinary  life  of  the  seminary, 
that  we  concluded  erelong,  my  friend  and  I,  to 
withdraw  from  it;  he  to  return  to  his  home  in 
Maryland,  I  to  mine  in  New  York. 

Our  intimacy  did  not  actually  cease  with  this 
event,  though  it  never  again  flourished.  We  com- 
municated with  each  other  by  letter  for  a  year  or 
two,  in  respect  chiefly  to  the  new  and  brilliant 
points  of  harmony  developed  between  our  nascent 
views  of  truth  and  the  gospel  record ;  or  else  the 
new  points  of  oppugnancy  which  these  views  con- 
tinually presented  to  the  ecclesiastical  conception 


PREFACE. 


139 


of  the  Church  universally,  and  the  frivolous  style 
of  life  or  tone  of  manhood  engendered  by  that 
conception.  But  after  a  while  our  correspondence 
languished,  and  finally  fell  away  altogether  before 
new  intimacies  on  both  sides,  and  the  access  of 
more  tender  cares.  My  friend  married,  and  I  mar- 
ried ;  each  being  content,  I  presume,  thenceforth 
to  hand  the  other's  memory  over  to  the  hallowed 
guardianship  of  his  wife's  diligent  ear.  He  had 
inherited  a  small  patrimony,  but  as  we  neither  of 
us  contemplated  a  life  of  idleness,  so  he  on  this 
inevitable  breaking  up  of  his  studies  got  a  situation 
of  trust  in  the  Treasury  Department  at  Washing- 
ton, which  his  ability  and  probity  qualified  him  to 
fill  with  advantage  to  the  country,  and  which  he 
continued  to  hold  up  to  the  time  of  his  death. 
Having  business  in  Washington  once  or  twice  dur- 
ing the  war,  I  made  it  a  point  to  revive  our  ancient 
friendship.  His  constitution  had  been  signally 
robust,  but  he  had  lost  his  wife  and  his  only  son  a 
year  or  two  before,  and  I  could  easily  see  that  he 
was  now  devoting  himself  with  forced  activity  to 
the  increased  labors  thrown  upon  him  in  common 
with  all  the  Government  servants  by  our  unex- 
ampled war.  I  warned  him  to  seek  relaxation  in 
time,  or  ere  it  should  begin  to  go  hard  with  his 
remaining  years.  He  listened  to  my  counsels  pa- 
tiently; but  one  day  when  I  had  seen  reason  to 


140  PREFACE. 

renew  them  with  increased  emphasis,  he  said  to  me, 
by  way  as  I  supposed  at  the  moment  of  diverting 
my  attention  and  his  own  from  the  subject,  that  in 
case  of  my  fears  verifying  themselves  the  result 
might  prove  somewhat  calamitous  to  me,  as  he  had 
made  me  the  legatee  of  a  manuscript  which  threw 
some  light  upon  his  inward  history,  and  which, 
as  there  was  now  no  one  of  his  blood  remaining 
to  take  exception  to  its  frankness,  he  thought  he 
might  properly  give  the  public  the  benefit  of.  I 
took  the  pleasant  menace  in  good  part,  putting  no 
serious  faith  in  it  however,  nor  indeed  scarcely 
thinking  of  it  again  till  about  a  year  ago,  when  I 
received  an  unexpected  summons  from  my  friend 
to  repair,  if  I  would,  to  Washington,  and  receive 
his  dying  farewell. 

I  found  him  in  fact  dying,  of  no  acute  agony,  but 
rather  of  a  chronic  malady  resulting  from  a  fever 
which  he  had  contracted  at  the  close  of  the  war, 
and  which  had  been  at  length  fatally  determined 
by  the  weight  of  his  official  labors  and  cares.  His 
mind  retained  all  its  vivacity,  and  we  had  a  great 
deal  of  conversation  immensely  interesting  to  me  I 
am  sure,  if  not  to  both  of  us.  It  was  in  the  very 
first  of  our  interviews  after  my  arrival  that  he  took 
occasion,  when  referring  to  our  old  contention  for 
the  truth  in  days  gone  by,  and  to  the  intimate  way 
in  which  I  had  then   become  associated  with  his 


PREFACE,  141 

mental  history,  to  revert  to  the  intimation  he  had 
once  given  me  of  having  imposed  upon  my  friend- 
ship a  certain  obligation  with  respect  to  his  liter- 
ary remains.  He  told  me  that  without  in  the  least 
affecting  to  suppose  that  his  intellectual  experience 
would  arrest  the  attention  of  the  reading  public,  he 
yet  conceived  that  it  had  many  points  of  interest  to 
scholars  and  serious  men  of  letters,  such  especi- 
ally as  were  concerned  with  religious  ideas  and 
the  problems  of  philosophy.  He  had  accord- 
ingly busied  himself,  in  intervals  of  official  duty, 
with  recalling  the  facts  of  his  mental  career,  and 
putting  them  together  in  a  shape  so  connected  as 
to  save  me  any  great  labor  in  preparing  them  for 
the  press.  He  counted  upon  my  sympathy  with 
him  in  the  things  of  the  intellect  to  engage  me 
cheerfully  in  the  task ;  and  he  thought  that  as  he 
was  now  so  fast  getting  beyond  the  reach  of  men's 
favor  and  of  their  frown,  he  might  without  im- 
modesty make  his  first  appeal  to  their  attention. 
"  I  will  not  affect  to  conceal,"  he  said,  "  that  the 
manuscript  I  have  confided  to  you  takes  its  readers 
out  of  the  shallows  of  ordinary  biography  whether 
religious  or  secular,  and  inducts  them  into  some- 
what unfrequented  paths  of  thought.  But  I  count 
none  the  less  upon  your  generous  friendship  to  da 
me  justice.  You  have  been  a  faithful  friend  to  my 
mortal  person ;  be  now  a  friend  to  my  immortal 


142  PREFACE. 

one,  —  that  is,  to  the  ideas  which  I  have  endeav- 
ored to  embody  in  my  autobiographic  sketch,  and 
which  will  soon  be  converted  into  the  sole  fixed 
earth  and  sole  contingent  heaven  of  my  future  con- 
sciousness. Give  them  to  the  public  with  such  care 
at  least  as  shall  leave  none  of  their  proper  force 
abated.  The  great  day  of  doom  is  upon  us,  and 
how  few  of  us  suspect  it !  We  go  on  eating  and 
drinking,  marrying  and  giving  in  marriage,  just  as 
stupidly  as  if  the  days  of  our  existing  order  were 
still  unnumbered ;  and  if  any  perspicacious  person 
be  startled  into  a  word  of  timely  admonition,  our 
smirking  Philistines  of  the  press  are  down  upon 
him  with  such  a  noisy  tapping  and  rattling  of  Vol- 
taire's old  snuff-box,  and  such  a  frenzied  beating 
and  dusting  of  John  Mill's  cast-off  breeches,  as 
fairly  to  bury  his  decent  voice.  It  is  this  unsus- 
pected access  of  a  new  and  radical  divine  order  in 
human  life,  which  accounts  for  the  decrepitude  of 
all  our  traditional  faiths.  Science  is  bound  to 
chase  divinity  out  of  the  objective  realm  of  life, 
the  realm  of  sensible  knowledge ;  and  if  religion 
cannot  reproduce  it  in  the  subjective  sphere,  the 
realm  of  natural  consciousness,  it  must  go  unac- 
knowledged. But  I  claim  for  my  own  part  to  know 
God  no  longer  by  tradition,  much  less  of  course 
by  sense,  —  both  of  which  pretensions  would  be 
absurd  in  this  day  of  universal  scientific  fustigation 


PREFACE.  143 

and  fumigation,  —  but  by  natural  consciousness,  or 
within  the  compass  precisely  of  what  my  own  life 
has  in  common  with  that  of  all  other  men,  and 
in  contradistinction  to  mineral,  vegetable,  and  ani- 
mal life.  And  I  have  thought  that  to  indicate  the 
method  of  this  knowledge,  be  it  ever  so  feebly 
done,  would  be  to  deserve  well  of  my  kind." 

What  more  remains  to  be  said?  I  stayed  with 
my  friend  until  his  honored  head  resigned  itself  to 
the  dust;  saw  the  rites  of  sepulture  decently  per- 
formed over  his  cast-off  robe  of  flesh ;  ordered  a 
memorial  slab  for  his  grave,  bearing  this  inscription: 
HERE  LIE  THE  MORTAL  REMAINS  OF  STEPHEN 
DEWHURST;  a  faithful,  intrepid  SOLDIER  OF 
THE  CROSS,  TO  WHOM  HOWEVER  THE  CROSS  TYPI- 
FIED NOTHING  BUT  THE  NORMAL  DISTINCTIVE 
FORM  OF  GOD'S  LIFE  IN  THE  SOUL  OF  UNIVER- 
SAL MAN,  —  and  then  returned  home  to  read  and 
ponder  his  bequest.  He  had  given  it,  I  discovered, 
the  form  of  a  series  of  letters  addressed  to  me.  It 
was  too  much  trouble  to  attempt  recasting  its 
form,  and  I  have  concluded  to  publish  it  just  as  it 
came  from  his  hand,  with  the  exception  of  dividing 
it  into  chapters  instead  of  letters.  This  will  prove 
no  inconvenience  to  the  reader,  if  he  will  always 
bear  in  mind  that  what  he  is  reading  is  substantially 
a   letter.      I  have  no  remark   to  make  upon  the 


144  PREFACE. 

character  of  the  work,  save  that  I  found  it  replete 
with  interest  to  my  own  mind,  and  hastened  to  give 
it  to  the  printer.  The  reader  has  it  now  in  his  own 
hands,  and  will  not  be  slow,  as  I  conceive,  to  judge 
it  upon  its  merits.  If  my  friend's  executors,  who 
tell  me  that  they  have  not  had  time  to  examine 
his  remaining  manuscripts  perfectly,  should  find 
anything  in  them  fitted  to  throw  light  upon  the 
principles  or  the  incidents  of  the  autobiographic 
sketch  he  has  here  attempted,  they  will  at  once 
communicate  the  new  matter  to  me,  and  I  will  add 
it,  if  it  seem  advisable,  to  a  later  edition  of  the 
book.  But  I  think  the  contingency  in  question 
very  unlikely  at  the  least,  and  so  dismiss  myself 
at  once  from  the  reader's  further  attention. 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 


CHAPTER    I. 

MV  EARLIEST  RECOLLECTIONS. 

T  WILL  not  attempt  to  state  the  year  in  which  I 
was  born,^  because  it  is  not  a  fact  embraced  in 
my  own  knowledge,  but  content  myself  with  saying 
instead,  that  the  earliest  event  of  my  biographic 
consciousness  is  that  of  my  having  been  carried 
out  into  the  streets  one  night,  in  the  arms  of  my 
negro  nurse,  to  witness  a  grand  illumination  in 
honor  of  the  treaty  of  peace  then  just  signed  with 
Great  Britain.  From  this  circumstance  I  infer  of 
course  that  I  was  born  before  the  year  1815,  but  it 
gives  me  no  warrant  to  say  just  how  long  before. 
The  net  fact  is  that  my  historic  consciousness,  or 
my  earliest  self-recognition,  dates  from  this  muni- 
cipal illumination  in  honor  of  peace.  So  far,  how- 
ever, as  my  share  in  that  spectacle  is  concerned,  I 
am  free  to  say  it  was  a  failure.  That  is,  the  only 
impression  left  by  the  illumination  upon  my  imagi- 

1  June  2,  181 1. 
10 


146  AUTOBIOGRATHY. 

nation  was  the  contrast  of  the  awful  dark  of  the  sky 
with  the  feeble  glitter  of  the  streets ;  as  if  the  ani- 
mus of  the  display  had  been,  not  to  eclipse  the 
darkness,  but  to  make  it  visible.  You,  of  course, 
may  put  what  interpretation  you  choose  upon  the 
incident,  but  it  seems  to  me  rather  emblematic 
of  the  intellect,  that  its  earliest  sensible  founda- 
tions should  thus  be  laid  in  "  a  horror  of  great 
darkness." 

My  father  ^  was  a  successful  merchant,  who  early 
in  life  had  forsaken  his  native  Somerset  County,^ 
with  its  watery  horizons,  to  settle  in  Baltimore ;  ° 
where  on  the  strength  of  a  good  primary  educa- 
tion, in  which  I  was  glad  to  observe  some  knowl- 
edge of  Latin  had  mingled,  he  got  employment  as 
a  clerk  in  a  considerable  mercantile  house,  and  by 
his  general  intelligence  and  business  sagacity  ere- 
long laid  the  foundations  of  a  prosperous  career. 
When  I  was  very  young  I  do  not  remember  to 
have  had  much  intellectual  contact  with  my  father 
save  at  family  prayers  and  at  meals,  for  he  was 
always  occupied  during  the  day  with  business; 
and  even  in  the  frank  domestic  intercourse  of  the 
evening,  when  he  was  fond  of  hearing  his  children 
read  to  him,  and  would  frequently  exercise  them 
in  their   studies,  I   cannot  recollect  that  he  ever 

1  William  James.  ^  County  Cavan,  Ireland. 

3  Albany,  N.  Y. 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY.  I47 

questioned  me  about  my  out-of-door  occupations, 
or  about  my  companions,  or  showed  any  extreme 
solicitude  about  my  standing  in  school.  He  was 
certainly  a  very  easy  parent,  and  I  might  have 
been  left  to  regard  him  perhaps  as  a  rather  indiffer- 
ent one,  if  it  had  not  been  for  a  severe  illness  which 
befell  me  from  a  gun-shot  wound  in  my  arm,  and 
which  confined  me  for  a  long  time  to  the  house, 
when  his  tenderness  to  me  showed  itself  so  assidu- 
ous and  indeed  extreme  as  to  give  me  an  exalted 
sense  of  his  affection.^  My  wound  had  been  very 
severe,  being  followed  by  a  morbid  process  in  the 
bone  which  ever  and  anon  called  for  some  sharp 
surgery;  and  on  these  occasions  I  remember  — 
for  the  use  of  anaesthetics  was  still  wholly  undreamt 
of — his  sympathy  with  my  sufferings  was  so  ex- 
cessive that  my  mother  had  the  greatest  possible 
difficulty  in  imposing  due  prudence  upon  his  ex- 
pression of  it. 

My  mother  2  was  a  good  wife  and  mother,  nothing 
else,  —  save,  to  be  sure,  a  kindly  friend  and  neigh- 
bor. The  tradition  of  the  house,  indeed,  was  a 
very  charitable  one.  I  remember  that  my  father 
was  in  the  habit  of  having  a  great  quantity  of  beef 

1  At  the  age  of  thirteen,  Mr.  James  had  his  right  leg  so  severely 
burned  while  playing  the  then  not  usual  game  of  fire-ball  that  he 
was  confined  to  his  bed  for  two  years,  and  two  thigh  amputations 
had  to  be  performed. 

^  Catharine  Barber. 


1 48  A  UTOBIOGRAPHY. 

and  pork  and  potatoes  laid  by  in  the  beginning  of 
winter  for  the  needy  poor,  the  distribution  of  which 
my  mother  regulated  ;  and  no  sooner  was  the  origi- 
nal stock  exhausted  than  the  supply  was  renewed 
with  ungrudging  hand.  My  mother,  I  repeat,  was 
maternity  itself  in  form ;  and  I  remember,  as  a 
touching  evidence  of  this,  that  I  have  frequently 
seen  her  during  my  protracted  illness,  when  I  had 
been  greatly  reduced  and  required  the  most  watch- 
ful nursing,  come  to  my  bedside  fast  asleep  with 
her  candle  in  her  hand,  and  go  through  the  forms 
of  covering  my  shoulders,  adjusting  my  pillows, 
and  so  forth,  just  as  carefully  as  if  she  were  awake. 
The  only  other  thing  I  have  to  remark  about  her 
is,  that  she  was  the  most  democratic  person  by  tem- 
perament I  ever  knew.  Her  father,^  who  spent  the 
evening  of  his  days  in  our  family,  was  a  farmer 
of  great  respectability  and  considerable  substance. 
He  had  borne  arms  in  the  Revolutionary  War, 
was  very  fond  of  historic  reading,  had  a  tenacious 
memory,  and  used  to  exercise  it  upon  his  grand- 
children at  times  to  their  sufficient  ennui.  I  never 
felt  any  affectionate  leaning  to  him.  Two  of  his 
brothers  had  served  throughout  the  war  in  the 
army,  —  one  of  them,  Colonel  F.  B.,^  having 
been    a   distinguished    and   very    efficient  officer 

1  John  Barber,  of  (then)  Montgomery,  Orange  Co.,  N.  Y.  (near 
Newburgh). 

2  Francis  Barber. 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY.  1 49 

in  various  engagements,  and  a  trusted  friend  of 
Washington;  the  other,  Major  W.  B.,^  who, 
if  my  memory  serve  me,  was  an  aid  of  General 
Lafayette.  These  of  course  are  never  ungrati- 
fying  facts  to  the  carnal  mind ;  and  when  ac- 
cordingly we  children  used  to  ask  our  mother 
for  tales  about  her  uncles,  she  gave  us  to  be  sure 
what  she  had  to  give  with  good-will,  but  I  could 
very  well  see  that  for  some  reason  or  other  she 
never  was  able  to  put  herself  in  our  precise  point 
of  view  in  reference  to  them.  She  seemed  some- 
way ashamed,  as  well  as  I  could  gather,  of  having 
had  distinguished  relations.  And  then  I  remember 
I  used  to  feel  surprised  to  see  how  much  satisfac- 
tion she  could  take  in  chatting  with  her  respectable 
sewing-women,  and  how  she  gravitated  as  a  general 
thing  into  relations  of  the  frankest  sympathy  with 
every  one  conventionally  beneath  her.  I  should 
say,  indeed,  looking  back,  that  she  felt  a  tacit 
quarrel  with  the  fortunes  of  her  life  in  that  they 
had  sought  to  make  her  a  flower  or  a  shrub,  when 
she  herself  would  so  willingly  have  remained  mere 
lowly  grass. 

But  I  must  say  one  word  of  my  mother's  mother, 
whose  memory  I  cherish  much  more  than  that  of 
my  grandfather.     She  came  to  us  at  times  in  win- 
ter, and  as  long  as  she  lived  we  spent  a  month  of 
1  William  Barber. 


150  A  UTOBIO  GRAPHY. 

every  summer  with  her  in  the  country,  where  I 
deUghted  to  drive  the  empty  ox-cart  far  afield  to 
bring  in  a  load  of  fragrant  hay,  or  gather  apples 
for  the  cider-press,  refreshing  myself  the  while 
with  a  well-selected  apricot  or  two.  She  was  of 
a  grave,  thoughtful  aspect,  but  she  had  a  most  viva- 
cious love  of  children,  and  a  very  exceptional  gift 
of  interesting  them  in  conversation,  which  greatly 
endeared  her  society  to  me.  It  was  not  till  I  had 
grown  up,  and  she  herself  was  among  the  blessed, 
that  I  discovered  she  had  undergone  a  great  deal 
of  mental  suffering,  and  dimly  associated  this  fact 
somehow  with  the  great  conscience  she  had  always 
made  of  us  children.  She  had  been  from  youth 
a  very  religious  person,  without  a  shadow  of  scep- 
ticism or  indifference  in  her  mental  temperament; 
but  as"  life  matured  and  her  heart  became  mellowed 
under  its  discipline,  she  fell  to  doubting  whether 
the  dogmatic  traditions  in  which  she  had  been 
bred  effectively  represented  Divine  truth.  And  the 
conflict  grew  so  active  erelong  between  this  quick- 
ened allegiance  of  her  heart  to  God,  and  the  merely 
habitual  deference  her  intellect  was  under  to  men's 
opinions,  as  to  allow  her  afterwards  no  fixed  rest 
this  side  of  the  grave.  In  her  most  depressed  con- 
dition, however,  she  maintained  an  equable  front 
before  the  world,  fulfilled  all  her  duties  to  her  fam- 
ily and  her  neighborhood,  and  yielded   at  last  to 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY.  151 

death,  as  I  afterwards  learned,  in  smiling  confidence 
of  a  speedy  resolution  of  all  her  doubts.  I  never 
failed  to  contrast  the  soft  flexibility  and  sweetness 
of  her  demeanor  with  the  stoicism  of  my  grand- 
father's character,  and  early  noted  the  signal  dif- 
ference between  the  rich  spontaneous  favor  we 
children  enjoyed  at  her  hands,  and  the  purely  vol- 
untary or  polite  attentions  we  received  from  him. 
Nor  could  I  doubt  when  in  after  years  my  own 
hour  of  tribulation  sounded,  and  I  too  felt  my  first 
immortal  longing  "  to  bathe  myself  in  innocency," 
that  this  dear  old  lady  had  found  in  the  ignorance 
and  innocence  of  the  grandchildren  whom  she 
loved  to  hug  to  her  bosom  a  truer  gospel  balm,  a 
far  more  soothing  and  satisfactory  echo  of  Divine 
knowledge,  than  she  had  ever  caught  from  the 
logic  of  John  Calvin. 

I  have  nothing  to  say  of  my  brothers  and  sisters, 
who  were  seven  ^  in  number,  except  that  our  rela- 
tions proved  always  cordially  affectionate ;  so  much 
so,  indeed,  that  I  cannot  now  recall  any  instance 
of  serious  envy  or  jealousy  between  us.  The  law 
of  the  house,  within  the  limits  of  religious  decency, 
was  freedom  itself,  and  the  parental  will  or  wisdom 
had  very  seldom  to  be  appealed  to  to  settle  our 

^  My  grandfather  married  three  times,  and  had  in  all  eleven 
children.  The  seven  of  whom  my  father  speaks  were  his  ffitm 
brothers  and  sisters,  born  of  the  third  marriage.  —  Ed. 


152  AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 

trivial  discords.  I  should  think  indeed  that  our 
domestic  intercourse  had  been  on  the  whole  most 
innocent  as  well  as  happy,  were  it  not  for  a  certain 
lack  of  oxygen  which  is  indeed  incidental  to  the 
family  atmosphere,  and  which  I  may  characterize 
as  the  lack  of  any  ideal  of  action  but  that  of  self- 
preservation.  It  is  the  curse  of  the  worldly  mind, 
as  of  the  civic  or  political  state  of  man  to  which  it 
affords  a  material  basis ;  it  is  the  curse  of  the  re- 
ligious mind,  as  of  the  ecclesiastical  forms  to  which 
it  furnishes  a  spiritual  base,  —  that  they  both  alike 
constitute  their  own  ideal,  or  practically  ignore 
any  ulterior  Divine  end.  I  say  it  is  their  curse, 
because  they  thus  conflict  with  the  principles  of 
universal  justice,  or  God's  providential  order  in  the 
earth,  which  rigidly  enjoins  that  each  particular 
thing  exist  for  all,  and  that  all  things  i7i  general 
exist  for  each.  Our  family  at  all  events  perfectly 
illustrated  this  common  vice  of  contented  isola- 
tion. Like  all  the  other  families  of  the  land  it 
gave  no  sign  of  a  spontaneous  religious  culture, 
or  of  affections  touched  to  the  dimensions  of  uni- 
versal man.  In  fact,  religious  truth  at  that  day, 
as  it  seems  to  me,  was  at  the  very  lowest  ebb  of 
formal  remorseless  dogmatism  it  has  ever  reached, 
and  offered  nothing  whatever  to  conciliate  the 
enmity  of  unwilling  hearts.  When  I  remember 
the  clergy  who  used  to  frequent  my  father's  house, 


A  UTOBIOGRAPHY. 


153 


which  offered  the  freest  hospitality  to  any  number 
of  the  cloth,  and  recall  the  tone  of  the  religious 
world  generally  with  which  I  was  familiar,  I  find 
my  memory  is  charged  with  absolutely  no  incident 
either  of  manners  or  conversation  which  would 
ever  lead  me  to  suppose  that  religion  was  any- 
thing more  in  its  votaries  than  a  higher  prudence, 
or  that  there  was  anything  whatever  in  the  Divine 
character  as  revealed  in  the  gospel  of  Christ  to 
inflame  in  common  minds  an  enthusiam  of  devo- 
tion, or  beget  anything  like  a  passionate  ardor  of 
self-abasement. 

Thus  the  entire  strain  of  the  Orthodox  faith  of 
the  period  was  at  fault,  and  restricted  the  motions 
of  the  divine  life  in  us  to  the  working  out  at  most 
of  a  conventionally  virtuous  and  pious  repute.  It 
was  eminently  respectable  to  belong  to  the  church, 
and  there  were  few  insatiate  worldlings,  I  suspect, 
who  did  not  count  upon  giving  in  a  prudent  adhe- 
sion to  it  at  the  last.  We  children  of  the  church 
had  been  traditionally  taught  to  contemplate  God 
as  a  strictly  j-z^/^matural  being,  bigger  personally 
than  all  the  world ;  and  not  only  therefore  out 
of  all  sympathy  with  our  pigmy  infirmities,  but 
exceedingly  jealous  of  the  hypocritical  homage 
we  paid  to  his  contemptuous  forbearance.  This 
dramatic  homage,  however,  being  of  an  altogether 
negative  complexion,  was  exceedingly  trying  to  us. 


154  ^  U  TO  BIO  GRA  PHY. 

Notoriously  our  Orthodox  Protestant  faith,  how- 
ever denominated,  is  not  intellectually  a  cheerful 
one,  though  it  is  not  so  inwardly  demoralizing 
doubtless  as  the  Catholic  teaching;  but  it  makes 
absolutely  no  ecclesiastical  provision  in  the  way  of 
spectacle  for  engaging  the  affections  of  child- 
hood. The  innocent  carnal  delights  of  children 
are  ignored  by  the  church  save  at  Christmas ;  and 
as  Christmas  comes  but  once  a  year,  we  poor 
little  ones  were  practically  shut  up  for  all  our  spiri- 
tual limbering,  or  training  in  the  divine  life^  to  the 
influence  of  our  ordinary  paralytic  Sunday  routine. 
That  is,  we  were  taught  not  to  play,  not  to  dance 
nor  to  sing,  not  to  read  story-books,  not  to  con 
over  our  school-lessons  for  Monday  even ;  not  to 
whistle,  not  to  ride  the  pony,  nor  to  take  a  walk  in 
the  country,  nor  a  swim  in  the  river;  nor,  in  short, 
to  do  anything  which  nature  specially  craved. 
How  my  particular  heels  ached  for  exercise,  and 
all  my  senses  pined  to  be  free,  it  is  not  worth  while 
to  recount;  suffice  it  to  say,  that  although  I  know 
my  parents  were  not  so  Sabbatarian  as  many,  I 
cannot  flatter  myself  that  our  household  sanctity 
ever  presented  a  pleasant  aspect  to  the  angels. 
Nothing  is  so  hard  for  a  child  as  not-to-do  ;  that  is, 
to  keep  his  hands  and  feet  and  tongue  in  enforced 
inactivity.  It  is  a  cruel  wrong  to  put  such  an  obli- 
gation upon  him,  while  his  reflective  faculties  are 


A  UTOBIO  GRA  PHY.  1 5  5 

Still  undeveloped,  and  his  senses  urge  him  to  unre- 
stricted action.  I  am  persuaded,  for  my  part  at  all 
events,  that  the  number  of  things  I  was  conven- 
tionally bound  not-to-do  at  that  tender  age,  has 
made  Sunday  to  my  imagination  ever  since  the 
most  oppressive  or  least  gracious  and  hallowed  day 
of  the  week;  and  I  should  not  wonder  if  the  re- 
pression it  riveted  upon  my  youthful  freedom  had 
had  much  to  do  with  the  habitual  unamiableness 
and  irritability  I  discover  in  myself 

My  boyish  Sundays  however  had  one  slight  al- 
leviation. The  church  to  which  I  was  born  occu- 
pied one  extremity  of  a  block,  and  sided  upon  a 
public  street.  Our  family  pew  was  a  large  square 
one,  and  embraced  in  part  a  window  which  gave 
upon  the  street,  and  whose  movable  blinds  with 
their  cords  and  tassels  gave  much  quiet  entertain- 
ment to  my  restless  fingers.  It  was  my  delight  to 
get  to  church  early,  in  order  to  secure  a  certain 
corner  of  the  pew  which  commanded  the  sidewalk 
on  both  sides  of  the  street,  and  so  furnished  me 
many  pregnant  topics  of  speculation.  Two  huge 
chains  indeed  extended  across  the  street  at  either 
extremity  of  the  church,  debarring  vehicles  from 
passing.  But  pedestrians  enjoyed  their  liberty 
unimpeded,  and  took  on  a  certain  halo  to  my  im- 
agination from  the  independent  air  with  which 
they  used  it.     Sometimes  a  person  would  saunter 


156  A  UTOBIOGRAPHY. 

past  in  modish  costume,  puffing  a  cigar,  and  gayly 
switching  ever  and  anon  the  legs  of  his  resonant 
well-starched  trousers ;  and  though  I  secretly  en- 
vied him  his  power  to  convert  the  sacred  day  into 
a  festivity,  I  could  not  but  indulge  some  doubts  as 
to  where  that  comfortable  state  of  mind  tended. 
Most  of  my  dramatis  personce  in  fact  wore  an  air  of 
careless  ease  or  idleness,  as  if  they  had  risen  from 
a  good  night's  sleep  to  a  late  breakfast,  and  were 
now  disposing  themselves  for  a  genuine  holiday  of 
delights.  I  was  doubtless  not  untouched  inwardly 
by  the  gospel  flavor  and  relish  of  the  spectacle, 
but  of  course  it  presented  to  my  legal  or  carnal 
apprehension  of  spiritual  things  a  far  more  peril- 
ous method  of  sanctifying  the  day,  than  that  offered 
by  men's  voluntary  denial  of  all  their  spontaneous 
instincts,  of  all  their  aesthetic  culture. 

I  may  say,  however,  that  one  vision  was  pretty 
constant,  and  left  no  pharisaic  pang  behind  it. 
Opposite  the  sacred  edifice  stood  the  dwelling- 
house  and  office  of  Mr.  O r,  a  Justice  of  the 

Peace ;  and  every  Sunday  morning,  just  as  the  ser- 
mon was    getting  well    under  way,  Mr.  O r's 

housemaid  would  appear  upon  the  threshold  with 
her  crumb-cloth  in  hand,  and  proceed  very  leis- 
urely to  shake  it  over  the  side  of  the  steps,  glanc- 
ing the  while,  as  well  as  I  could  observe,  with 
critical  appreciation  at  the  well-dressed  people  who 


A  UTOBIOGRAPHY.  157 

passed  by.  She  would  do  her  work  as  I  have  said 
in  a  very  leisurely  way,  leaving  the  cloth,  for  ex- 
ample, hanging  upon  the  balustrade  of  the  steps 
while  she  would  go  into  the  house,  and  then  re- 
turning again  and  again  to  shake  it,  as  if  she  loved 
the  task,  and  could  not  help  lingering  over  it. 
Perhaps  her  mistress  might  have  estimated  the 
performance  differently,  but  fortunately  she  was  in 
church ;  and  I  at  all  events  was  unfeignedly  ob- 
liged to  the  shapely  maid  for  giving  my  senses  so 
much  innocent  occupation  when  their  need  was 
sorest.  Her  pleasant  image  has  always  remained  a 
fixture  of  my  memory;  and  if  I  shall  ever  be  able 
to  identify  her  in  the  populous  world  to  which  we 
are  hastening,  be  assured  I  will  not  let  the  oppor- 
tunity slip  of  telling  her  how  much  I  owe  her  for 
the  fresh,  breezy,  natural  life  she  used  to  impart  to 
those  otherwise  lifeless,  stagnant,  most  unnatural 
Sunday  mornings. 


CHAP'iER  II. 

CONFLICT  BETWEEN  MY  MORAL  AND  MY 
SPIRITUAL  LIFE. 

THE  aim  of  all  formal  religious  worship,  as  it 
stood  impressed  upon  my  youthful  imagina- 
tion, was  to  save  the  soul  of  the  worshipper  from 
a  certain  liability  to  Divine  wrath  which  he  had 
incurred  as  the  inheritor  of  a  fallen  nature,  and 
from  which  he  could  only  get  relief  through  the 
merits  of  Christ  imputed  to  him,  and  apprehended 
by  faith.  I  had  been  traditionally  taught,  and  I 
traditionally  took  for  granted,  that  all  souls  had 
originally  forfeited  the  creative  good-will  in  the 
person  of  Adam,  their  attorney  or  representative, 
even  if  they  should  never  have  aggravated  that 
catastrophe  subsequently  in  their  own  persons ; 
so  that  practically  every  man  of  woman  born 
comes  into  the  world  charged  with  a  weight  of 
Divine  obstruction  or  limitation  utterly  hopeless 
and  crushing,  unless  relieved  by  actual  faith  in 
the  atoning  blood  of  Christ.  I  ought  not  to  say 
that  I  actually  believed  this  puerile  and  disgusting 
caricature  of  the  gospel,  for  one  believes  only  with 
the  heart,  and    my  heart    at    all    events    inmostly 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY.  1 59 

loathed  this  dogmatic  fouling  of  the  creative  name, 
even  while  it  passively  endured  its  authoritative 
imposition.  I  accepted  it  in  short  only  as  an  Or- 
thodox tradition, — just  as  all  the  world  does, — 
commended  to  my  unquestioning  faith  by  the  pre- 
vious acceptance  of  those  I  loved  and  honored. 
And  so  accepting  it,  its  inevitable  effect  was,  I 
may  say,  perpetually  to  inflame  a  self-love  and 
love  of  the  world  in  me  which  needed  everything 
but  inflaming. 

My  boyish  animal  spirits,  or  my  excessive  en- 
joyment of  life,  allowed  me  no  doubt  very  little 
time  for  reflection ;  yet  it  was  very  seldom  that  I 
lay  down  at  night  without  a  present  thought  of 
God,  and  some  little  effort  of  recoil  upon  myself. 
My  days  bowled  themselves  out  one  after  an- 
other, like  waves  upon  the  shore,  and  as  a  general 
thing  deafened  me  by  their  clamor  to  any  inward 
voice ;  but  the  dark  silent  night  usually  led  in  the 
spectral  eye  of  God,  and  set  me  to  wondering  and 
pondering  evermore  how  I  should  effectually  baffle 
its  gaze.  Now  I  cannot  conceive  any  less  whole- 
some or  innocent  occupation  for  the  childish  mind 
than  to  keep  a  debtor  and  creditor  account  with 
God ;  for  the  effect  of  such  discipline  is  either  to 
make  the  child  insufferably  conceited,  or  else  to 
harden  him  in  indifference  to  the  Divine  name. 
The  parent,  or  whoso  occupies  the  parent's  place, 


l6o  AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 

should  be  the  only  authorized  medium  of  the 
,  Divine  communion  with  the  child ;  and  if  the 
parent  repugn  this  function,  he  is  by  so  much 
disqualified  as  parent.  Men  have  their  instructed 
reason  and  their  experience  to  guide  them  in  Di- 
vine things,  and  guard  them  from  false  teaching; 
but  nothing  can  be  so  fatal  to  the  tender  awe  and 
reverence  which  should  always  sanctify  the  Divine 
name  to  the  youthful  mind  and  heart,  as  to  put 
the  child  in  a  bargaining  or  huckstering  attitude 
towards  God,  as  was  done  by  the  current  religious 
teaching  of  my  early  days.  I  was  habitually  led 
by  my  teachers  to  conceive  that  at  best  a  chronic 
apathy  existed  on  God's  part  towards  me,  superin- 
duced by  Christ's  work  upon  the  active  enmity  he 
had  formerly  felt  towards  us ;  and  the  only  reason 
why  this  teaching  did  not  leave  my  mind  in  a  sim- 
ilarly apathetic  condition  towards  him  was,  as  I 
have  since  become  persuaded,  that  it  always  met 
in  my  soul,  and  was  practically  paralyzed  by,  a 
profounder  Divine  instinct  which  affirmed  his 
stainless  and  ineffable  love.  I  should  never  indeed 
have  felt  my  intellectual  tranquillity  so  much  as 
jostled  by  the  insane  superstition  in  question,  if 
it  had  not  been  that  my  headlong  eagerness  in  the 
pursuit  of  pleasure  plunged  me  incessantly  into 
perturbations  and  disturbances  of  conscience,  which 
had  the  effect  often  to  convert  God's  chronic  apathy 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY.  l6l 

or  indifference  into  a  sentiment  of  acute  personal 
hostility.  Whenever  this  experience  occurred,  I 
was  down  in  the  dust  of  self-abasement,  and  then 
tried  every  way  I  possibly  could  to  transact  with 
God  —  on  the  basis  of  course  of  his  revealed 
clemency  in  Christ  —  by  the  most  profuse  ac- 
knowledgments of  indebtedness,  and  the  most  pro- 
fuse promises  of  future  payment.  Obviously  I 
could  not  be  expected  at  that  early  age  to  enter- 
tain problems  which  my  elders  themselves  were 
unable  to  solve.  Thus  I  never  stopped  to  ask  my- 
self how  a  being  whose  clemency  to  the  sinner 
wears  so  flatly  commercial  an  aspect,  —  being  the 
fruit  of  an  actual  purchase,  of  a  most  literal  and 
cogent  quid  pro  quo  duly  in  hand  paid,  —  could 
ever  hope  to  awaken  any  spiritual  love  or  confi- 
dence in  the  human  breast,  or  ever  pretend  conse- 
quently to  challenge  permanent  Divine  honor.  In 
short,  I  was  incapable  as  a  child  of  accepting  any 
theologic  dogma  as  true,  and  received  it  simply  on 
the  authority  of  the  Church ;  and  whenever  accord- 
ingly I  had  pungently  violated  conscience  in  any 
manner,  I  was  only  too  happy  to  betake  myself  to 
the  feet  of  Christ,  to  plead  his  healing  and  gra- 
cious words,  and  pray  that  my  offences  also  might 
be  blotted  out  in  his  atoning  blood. 

But  I  must  guard  against  giving  you  a  false  im- 
pression in  respect  to  these  devotional  exercises 

II 


1 62  AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 

of  my  childhood.  I  have  always  in  looking  back 
been  struck  with  the  fact,  and  used  at  first  to  be 
somewhat  disconcerted  by  it,  that  my  conscience, 
even  in  my  earliest  years,  never  charged  itself  with 
merely  literal  or  ritual  defilement ;  that  is  to  say, 
with  offences  which  did  not  contain  an  element 
of  active  or  spiritual  malignity  to  somebody  else. 
For  example,  there  was  a  shoemaker's  shop  in 
our  neighborhood,  at  which  the  family  were  sup- 
plied with  shoes.  The  business  was  conducted  by 
two  brothers  who  had  recently  inherited  it  of  their 
father,  and  who  were  themselves  uncommonly 
bright,  intelligent,  and  personable  young  men. 
From  the  circumstance  that  all  the  principal  fami- 
lies of  the  neighborhood  were  customers  of  the 
shop,  the  boys  of  these  families  in  going  there  to 
be  fitted,  or  to  give  orders,  frequently  encountered 
each  other,  and  at  last  got  to  making  it  an  habitual 
rendezvous.  There  were  two  apartments  belonging 
to  the  shop,  —  one  small,  giving  upon  the  street, 
which  contained  all  the  stock  of  the  concern,  and 
where  customers  were  received  ;  the  other,  in  which 
the  young  men  worked  at  their  trade  and  where 
we  boys  were  wont  to  congregate,  much  larger,  in 
the  rear,  and  descending  towards  a  garden.  I  was 
in  the  habit  of  taking  with  me  a  pocket  full  of 
apples  or  other  fruit  from  home,  on  my  visits  to 
the    shop,    for   the    delectation    of    its    occupants, 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY.  1 63 

several  of  the  other  lads  doing  the  same;  and  I 
frequently  carried  them  books,  especially  novels, 
which  they  were  fond  of  reading,  and  their  judg- 
ments of  which  seemed  to  me  very  intelligent. 
The  truth  is,  that  we  chits  were  rather  proud  to 
crony  with  these  young  men,  who  were  so  much 
older  than  ourselves,  and  had  so  much  more 
knowledge  of  the  world ;  and  if  their  influence 
over  us  had  been  really  educative,  almost  any  be- 
neficial results  might  have  been  anticipated.  I  do 
not  know  exactly  how  it  came  about,  but  one  step 
probably  led  to  another,  until  at  last  we  found  our- 
selves providing  them  an  actual  feast,  some  of  us 
supplying  edibles  and  other  potables  from  our  own 
larders  and  cellars.  I  used,  I  recollect,  to  take 
eggs  in  any  number  from  the  ample,  uncounted, 
and  unguarded  stores  at  home,  cakes,  fruits,  and 
whatever  else  it  was  handy  to  carry;  and  I  do  not 
know  to  what  lengths  our  mutual  emulation  in 
these  hospitable  of^ces  might  not  have  pushed  us, 
when  it  was  brought  to  a  sudden  stop.  Among 
the  urchins  engaged  in  these  foraging  exploits 
were  two  sons  of  the  governor  of  the  State,  who 
was  a  widower,  and  whose  household  affairs  were 
consequently  not  so  well  looked  after  as  they 
might  have  been.  By  the  connivance  of  their 
father's  butler,  these  young  gentlemen  were  in  the 
habit  of  storing  certain  dainties  in  their  own  room 


1 64  ^  UTOBIO  GRAPH  V. 

at  the  top  of  the  house,  whence  they  could  be  con- 
veniently transported  to  the  shop  at  their  leisure 
without  attracting  observation.  But  the  governor 
unfortunately  saw  fit  to  re-marry  soon  after  our 
drama  opened,  and  his  new  wife  took  such  good 
order  in  the  house,  that  my  young  friends  were 
forced  thereafter  to  accomplish  their  ends  by  pro- 
founder  strategy.  And  so  it  happened  that  their 
step-mother,  sitting  one  warm  summer  evening  at 
her  open  but  unilluminated  chamber-window  to 
enjoy  the  breeze,  suddenly  became  aware  of  a 
dark  object  defining  itself  upon  the  void  between 
her  face  and  the  stars,  but  in  much  too  close  prox- 
imity to  the  former  to  be  agreeable,  and  naturally 
put  forth  her  hand  to  determine  the  law  of  its  pro- 
jection. It  proved  to  be  a  bottle  of  Madeira, 
whose  age  was  duly  authenticated  by  cobwebs  and 
weather-stains ;  and  from  the  apparatus  of  stout 
twine  connected  with  it  there  seemed  to  be  no 
reasonable  doubt  that  some  able  engineering  was 
at  the  bottom  of  the  phenomenon.  Search  was 
made,  and  the  engineers  discovered.  And  to  make 
a  long  story  short,  this  discovery  did  not  fail  of 
course  to  propagate  a  salutary  rumor  of  itself, 
and  eke  a  tremor,  to  the  wonted  scene  of  our  fes- 
tivities, begetting  on  the  part  of  the  habitues  of 
the  place  a  much  more  discreet  conduct  for  the 
future. 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY.  1 65 

But  this  is  not  by  any  means  the  only  or  the 
chief  immorality  that  distinguished  my  boyish 
days.  My  father,  for  example,  habitually  kept  a 
quantity  of  loose  silver  in  a  drawer  of  his  dressing- 
table,  with  a  view  I  suppose  to  his  own  and  my 
mother's  convenience  in  paying  house-bills.  It 
more  than  covered  the  bottom  of  the  drawer,  and 
though  I  never  essayed  to  count  it,  I  should  judge 
it  usually  amounted  to  a  sum  of  eight  or  ten  dol- 
lars, perhaps  double  that  sum,  in  Spanish  six- 
pences, shillings,  and  quarters.  The  drawer  was 
seldom  locked,  and  even  when  locked  usually  had 
the  key  remaining  in  the  lock,  so  that  it  ofifered  no 
practical  obstacle  to  the  curiosity  of  servants  and 
children.  Our  servants  I  suppose  were  very  hon- 
est, as  I  do  not  recollect  to  have  ever  heard  any  of 
them  suspected  of  interfering  with  the  glittering 
treasure,  nor  indeed  do  I  know  that  they  were  at 
all  aware  of  its  exposed  existence.  From  my  earli- 
est days  I  remember  that  I  myself  cherished  the 
greatest  practical  reverence  for  the  sacred  deposit, 
and  seldom  went  near  it  except  at  the  bidding  of 
my  mother  occasionally,  to  replenish  her  purse 
against  the  frequent  domestic  demands  made  upon 
it,  or  the  exaction  of  my  own  weekly  stipend.  My 
youthful  imagination,  to  be  sure,  was  often  im- 
pressed on  these  occasions  with  the  apparently 
inexhaustible   resources    provided    by  this   small 


1 66  A  U  TO  BIO  CRAPHY. 

drawer  against  human  want,  but  my  necessities  at 
that  early  day  were  not  so  pronounced  as  to  sug- 
gest any  thought  of  actual  cupidity.  But  as  I 
grew  in  years,  and  approached  the  very  mundane 
age  of  seven  or  eight,  the  nascent  pleasures  of  the 
palate  began  to  alternate  to  my  consciousness  with 
those  of  my  muscular  activity,  —  such  as  marbles, 
kite-flying,  and  ball-playing;  and  I  was  gradually 
led  in  concert  with  my  companions  to  frequent  a 
very  tempting  confectioner's-shop  in  my  neighbor- 
hood, kept  by  a  colored  woman,  with  whom  my 
credit  was  very  good,  and  to  whom  accordingly, 
whenever  my  slender  store  of  pocket  money  was 
exhausted,  I  did  not  hesitate  to  run  in  debt  to  the 
amount  of  five,  ten,  or  twenty  cents.  This  trivial 
debt  it  was,  however,  which,  growing  at  length 
somewhat  embarrassing  in  amount,  furnished  the 
beginning  of  my  moral,  self-conscious,  or  distinc- 
tively human  experience. 

It  did  this  all  simply  in  making  me  for  the  first 
time  think  with  an  immense,  though  still  timorous 
sigh  of  relief,  of  my  father's  magical  drawer.  Thus 
my  country's  proverbial  taste  for  confectionery 
furnished  my  particular  introduction  to  "  the  tree  of 
knowledge  of  good  and  evil."  This  tragical  tree, 
which  man  is  forbidden  to  eat  of  under  pain  of 
finding  his  pleasant  paradisiacal  existence  shad- 
owed by  death,  symbolizes  his  dawning  spiritual 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY.  1 6/ 

life,  which  ahvays  to  his  own  perception  begins  in 
literal  or  subjectiv^e  darkness  and  evil.  For  what 
after  all  is  spiritual  life  in  sum?  It  is  the  heartfelt 
discovery  by  man  that  God  his  creator  is  alone 
good,  and  that  he  himself,  the  creature,  is  by  ne- 
cessary contrast  evil.  But  this  life  in  man,  being 
divine  and  immortal,  is  bound  to  avouch  its  proper 
grandeur,  by  thoroughly  subjugating  evil  or  death 
to  itself;  that  is,  absorbing  it  in  its  own  infinitude. 
Hence  it  is  that  man,  constitutionally  requiring  the 
most  intimate  handling  of  evil,  or  the  intensest 
spiritual  familiarity  with  it,  actually  finds  himself 
provisionally  identified  with  that  principle,  and  so 
far  furthered  consequently  on  his  way  to  immortal 
life. 

The  sentiment  of  relief  which  I  felt  at  the  re- 
membrance of  this  well-stocked  drawer,  remained 
a  sentiment  for  a  considerable  time  however  before 
it  precipitated  itself  in  actual  form.  I  enjoyed  in 
thought  the  possibility  of  relief  a  long  time  before 
I  dared  to  convert  it  into  an  actuality.  The  temp- 
tation to  do  this  was  absolutely  my  first  experience 
of  spiritual  daybreak,  my  first  glimpse  of  its  dis- 
tinctively moral  or  death-giving  principle.  Until 
then,  spiritual  existence  had  been  unknown  to  me 
save  by  the  hearing  of  the  ear.  That  is  to  say,  it 
was  mere  intellectual  gibberish  to  me.  Our  ex- 
perience of  the  spiritual  world  dates  in  truth  only 


l68  AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 

from  our  first  unaffected  shiver  at  guilt.  Our 
youthful  innocence,  like  every  other  divine-natural 
endowment  of  humanity,  dwells  in  us  in  altogether 
latent  or  unconscious  form,  and  we  never  truly 
recognize  it  until  we  have  forever  forfeited  it  to 
the  exigencies  of  a  more  spiritual  and  living  inno- 
cence. It  is  sure,  for  example,  never  to  come  to 
direct  consciousness  in  us  until  we  are  seriously 
tempted  to  do  some  conventionally  opprobrious 
thing,  and  have  incontinently  yielded  to  the  temp- 
tation ;  after  that,  looking  back  at  ourselves  to  see 
what  change  has  befallen  us,  we  become  aware  of 
our  loss,  and  immediately,  like  the  inapprehensive 
spiritual  noodles  we  are,  we  bend  all  our  energies 
to  recover  this  fugacious  innocence,  and  become 
henceforth  its  conscious  guardians !  —  as  if  man 
were  ever  capable  by  consciousness  of  embracing 
anything  good  !  As  if  the  human  conscience  were 
ever  open  to  anything  else  but  evil  in  some  of  its 
myriad-fold  modulations ! 

I  doubtless  relieved  myself  of  debt,  then,  by  two 
or  three  times  borrowing  freely  from  my  father's 
drawer,  without  any  thought  of  ever  making  resti- 
tution. But  it  is  idle  to  pretend  that  my  action  in 
any  of  these  cases  was  spiritually  criminal.  It  was 
clandestine  of  course,  as  it  could  hardly  help  being 
if  it  were  destined  ever  to  take  place  at  all,  and 
was  indeed  every  way  reprehensible  when  judged 


A  U  TO  BIO  GRAPH  Y.  1 69 

from  the  established  family  routine  or  order.  I 
had  no  idea  at  the  time,  of  course,  that  the  act  was 
not  sinful,  for  no  one  existed  within  my  knowledge 
capable  of  giving  me  that  idea.  But  though  I 
should  have  felt  excessively  ashamed  of  myself, 
doubtless,  if  my  parents  had  ever  discovered  or 
even  suspected  my  clandestine  operations,  yet  when 
my  religious  conscience  became  quickened  and  I 
had  learned  to  charge  myself  with  sin  against  God, 
I  practically  never  found  that  acts  of  this  sort  very 
heavily  burdened  my  penitential  memory.  I  did 
not  fail,  I  presume,  to  ventilate  them  occasionally 
in  my  daily  litany,  but  I  am  sure  they  never  any 
of  them  gave  me  a  sense  of  spiritual  defilement, 
nor  ever  cost  me  consequently  a  pang  of  godly 
sorrow.  The  reason  why  they  did  not  spiritually 
degrade  me  in  my  own  esteem  was,  I  suppose,  that 
they  were  at  worst  offences  committed  against  my 
parents ;  and  no  child  as  it  seems  to  me  with  the 
heart  of  a  child,  or  who  has  not  been  utterly  moral- 
ized out  of  his  natural  innocency  and  turned  into  a 
precocious  prig,  can  help  secretly  feeling  a  prop- 
erty in  his  parents  so  absolute  or  unconditional  as 
to  make  him  a  priori  sure,  do  what  he  will,  of  pre- 
serving their  affection.  It  would  not  have  seemed 
so  in  ancient  days,  I  grant.  The  parental  bond  was 
then  predominantly  paternal,  whereas  of  late  years 
it  is  becoming  predominantly  maternal.     At  that 


170  A  UTOBIO  GRA  PHY. 

period  it  was  very  nearly  altogether  authoritative 
and  even  tyrannous  with  respect  to  the  child ;  while 
in  our  own  day  it  is  fast  growing  to  be  one  of  the 
utmost  relaxation,  indulgence,  and  even  servility. 
My  father  was  weakly,  nay  painfully,  sensitive  to 
his  children's  claims  upon  his  sympathy;  and  I 
myself,  when  I  became  a  father  in  my  turn,  felt  that 
I  could  freely  sacrifice  property  and  life  to  save 
my  children  from  unhappiness.  In  fact,  the  family 
sentiment  has  become  within  the  last  hundred 
years  so  refined  of  its  original  gross  literality,  so 
shorn  of  its  absolute  consequence,  by  being  prac- 
tically considered  as  a  rudiment  to  the  larger  social 
sentiment,  that  no  intelligent  conscientious  parent 
now  thinks  of  himself  as  primary  in  that  relation, 
but  cheerfully  subordinates  himself  to  the  welfare 
of  his  children.  What  sensible  parent  now  thinks 
it  a  good  thing  to  repress  the  natural  instincts  of 
childhood,  and  not  rather  diligently  to  utilize  them 
as  so  many  divinely  endowed  educational  forces? 
No  doubt  much  honest  misgiving  is  felt  and  much 
honest  alarm  expressed  as  to  the  effect  of  these 
new  ideas  upon  the  future  of  our  existing  civiliza- 
tion. But  these  alarms  and  misgivings  beset  those, 
only  who  are  intellectually  indifferent  to  the  truth 
of  man's  social  destiny.  For  my  own  part,  I  de- 
light to  witness  this  outward  demoralization  of  the 
parental  bond,   because   I   see   in  it  the  pregnant 


A  UTOBIOGRA PHY.  1 J I 

evidence  of  a  growing  spiritualization  of  human 
life,  or  an  expanding  social  consciousness  among 
men,  which  will  erelong  exalt  them  out  of  the  mire 
and  slime  of  their  frivolous  and  obscene  private 
personality,  into  a  chaste  and  dignified  natural 
manhood.  This  social  conscience  of  manhood  is 
becoming  so  pronounced  and  irresistible  that  al- 
most no  one  who  deserves  the  name  of  parent  but 
feels  the  tie  that  binds  him  to  his  child  outgrowing 
its  old  moral  or  obligatory  limitations,  and  putting 
on  free,  spiritual,  or  spontaneous  lineaments.  In- 
deed, the  multitude  of  devout  minds  in  either  sex 
is  perpetually  enlarging  who  sincerely  feel  them- 
selves unfit  to  bear,  to  rear,  and  above  all  to  edu- 
cate and  discipline,  children  without  the  enlight- 
ened aid  and  furtherance  of  all  mankind.  And  it  is 
only  the  silliest,  most  selfish  and  arrogant  of  men 
that  can  afford  to  make  light  of  this  very  significant 
fact. 

But  to  resume.  What  I  want  particularly  to 
impress  upon  your  understanding  is  that  my  reli- 
gious conscience  in  its  early  beginnings  practically 
disowned  a  moral  or  outward  genesis,  and  took 
on  a  free,  inward,  or  spiritual  evolution.  Not  any 
literal  thing  I  did,  so  much  as  the  temper  of  mind 
with  which  it  was  done,  had  power  to  humble 
me  before  God  or  degrade  me  in  my  own  conceit. 
What  filled  my  breast  with  acute  contrition,  amount- 


172  AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 

ing  at  times  to  anguish,  was  never  any  technical 
offence  which  I  had  committed  against  estabhshed 
decorum,  but  ahvays  some  wanton  ungenerous 
word  or  deed  by  which  I  had  wounded  the  vital 
self-respect  of  another,  or  imposed  upon  him  gra- 
tuitous personal  suffering.  Things  of  this  sort 
arrayed  me  to  my  own  consciousness  in  flagrant 
hostility  to  God,  and  I  never  could  contemplate 
them  without  feeling  the  deepest  sense  of  sin.  I 
sometimes  wantonly  mocked  the  sister  who  was 
nearest  me  in  age,  and  now  and  then  violently 
repelled  the  overtures  of  a  younger  brother  who 
aspired  to  associate  himself  with  me  in  my  sports 
and  pastimes.  But  when  I  remembered  these 
things  upon  my  bed,  the  terrors  of  hell  encom- 
passed me,  and  I  was  fairly  heartbroken  with  a 
dread  of  being  estranged  from  God  and  all  good 
men.  Even  now  I  cannot  recur  to  these  instances 
of  youthful  depravity  in  me  without  a  pungent 
feehng  of  self-abasement,  without  a  meltingly  ten- 
der recognition  of  the  Divine  magnanimity.  I  was 
very  susceptible  of  gratitude,  moreover,  and  this 
furnished  another  spur  to  my  religious  conscience. 
For  although  I  abounded  in  youthful  cupidity  of 
every  sort,  I  never  got  the  satisfaction  of  my  wishes 
without  a  sensible  religious  thankfulness.  Espe- 
cially rife  was  this  sentiment  whenever  I  had  had 
a  marked  escape  from  fatal  calamity.     For  I  was 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY.  1 73 

an  ardent  angler  and  gunner  from  my  earliest 
remembrance,  and  in  my  eagerness  for  sport  used 
to  expose  myself  to  accidents  so  grave  as  to  keep 
my  parents  in  perpetual  dread  of  my  being  brought 
home  some  day  disabled  or  dead.  I  distinctly 
remember  how  frequently  on  these  occasions,  feel- 
ing what  a  narrow  escape  I  had  had  from  rock  or 
river,  I  was  wont  to  be  visited  by  the  most  remorse- 
ful sense  of  my  own  headlong  folly,  and  >  the  most 
adoring  grateful  sentiment  of  the  Divine  long- 
suffering. 

To  sum  up  all  in  a  word  :  my  religious  conscience, 
as  Avell  as  I  can  recall  it,  was  from  infancy  an  in- 
tensely living  one,  acknowledging  no  ritual  bonds, 
and  admitting  only  quasi  spiritual,  that  is  natural, 
satisfactions.  There  was  of  course  a  certain  estab- 
lished order  in  the  house  as  to  coming  and  going, 
as  to  sleeping  and  waking,  as  to  meal-times  and 
morning  prayers,  as  to  study  hours  and  play  hours, 
and  so  forth.  I  certainly  never  exhibited  any  wil- 
ful disrespect  for  this  order,  but  doubtless  I  felt  no 
absolute  respect  for  it,  and  even  violated  it  egre- 
giously  whenever  my  occasions  demanded.  But 
at  the  same  time  nothing  could  be  more  painful 
to  me  than  to  find  that  I  had  wounded  my  father's 
or  mother's  feelings,  or  disappointed  any  specific 
confidence  they  had  reposed  in  me.  And  I  acutely 
bemoaned  my  evil  lot  whenever  I  came  into  chance 


1 74  ^  UTOBIO  GRAPH  Y. 

personal  collision  with  my  brothers  or  sisters.  In 
short,  I  am  satisfied  that  if  there  had  been  the  least 
spiritual  Divine  leaven  discernible  within  the  com- 
pass of  the  family  bond;  if  there  had  been  the 
least  recognizable  subordination  in  it  to  any  objec- 
tive or  public  and  universal  ends,  —  I  should  have 
been  very  sensitive  to  the  fact,  and  responsive  to 
the  influences  it  exerted.  But  there  was  nothing 
of  the  sort.  Our  family  righteousness  had  as  little 
felt  relation  to  the  public  life  of  the  world,  as  little 
connection  with  the  common  hopes  and  fears  of 
mankind,  as  the  number  and  form  of  the  rooms  we 
inhabited ;  and  we  contentedly  lived  the  same  life 
of  stagnant  isolation  from  the  race  which  the  great 
mass  of  our  modern  families  live,  its  surface  never 
dimpled  by  anything  but  the  duties  and  courtesies 
we  owed  to  our  private  friends  and  acquaintances. 
The  truth  is,  that  the  family  tie,  —  the  tie  of  recip- 
rocal ownership  which  binds  together  parent  and 
child,  brother  and  sister,  — was  when  it  existed  in  its 
integrity  a  purely  legal,  formal,  typical  tie,  intended 
merely  to  represent  or  symbolize  to  men's  imag- 
ination the  universal  family,  or  household  of  faith, 
eventually  to  appear  upon  the  earth.  But  it  never 
had  the  least  suspicion  of  its  own  spiritual  mission. 
It  was  bound  in  fact  in  the  interest  of  self-preserva- 
tion to  ignore  this  its  vital  representative  function, 
to  regard  itself  as  its  own  end,  and  coerce  its  chil- 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY.  1 75 

dren  consequently  into  an  allegiance  often  very  det- 
rimental to  their  future  spiritual  manhood.  For 
any  refining  or  humanizing  influence  accordingly 
which  the  family  is  to  exert  upon  its  members, 
we  must  look  exclusively  to  the  future  of  the  insti- 
tution, when  it  will  be  glorified  for  the  first  time 
into  a  natural  or  universal  bond.  It  is  a  denial  of 
order  to  demand  of  the  subterranean  germ  what  we 
expect  of  the  full  corn  in  the  ear.  If  for  example 
the  family  as  it  once  existed  had  ever  been  con- 
scious of  its  strictly  representative  virtue  ;  if  it  had 
for  a  moment  recognized  that  spiritual  Divine 
end  of  blessing  to  universal  man  which  alone 
inwardly  consecrated  it,  —  it  would  have  inconti- 
nently shrivelled  up  in  its  own  esteem,  and  ceased 
thereupon  to  propagate  itself;  so  defeating  its  own 
end.  For  the  only  spiritual  Divine  end  which  has 
ever  sanctified  the  family  institution  and  shaped 
its  issues,  is  the  evolution  of  a  free  society  or  fel- 
lowship among  men ;  inasmuch  as  the  family  is 
literally  the  seminary  of  the  race,  or  constitutes 
the  sole  Divine  seed  out  of  which  the  social  con- 
sciousness of  man  ultimately  flowers.  Thus  the 
only  true  Divine  life  or  order  practicable  within 
the  family  precinct,  the  only  sentiment  truly  spir- 
itual appropriate  to  the  isolated  family  as  such, 
would  have  been  fatal  to  its  existence,  as  it  would 
have  taken  from  it  its  proper  pride  of  life ;   for  it 


176  AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 

would  have  consisted  in  each  of  its  members  freely 
disoivning  all  the  rest  in  the  faith  of  a  strictly  uni- 
tary spiritttal  paternity  or  being  to  all  men,  and  a 
strictly  universal  natural  maternity  or  existence. 

We  seem  in  fact  only  now  becoming  qualified  to 
realize  the  spiritual  worth  of  the  family  considered 
as  a  representative  economy.  For  unquestionably 
we  do  as  a  people  constitutionally  reject — in  the 
symbols  of  priest  and  king  —  the  only  two  hitherto 
sacred  pillars  upon  which  the  ark  of  man's  salva- 
tion has  rested,  or  which  have  based  his  public 
and  private  righteousness ;  and  it  is  very  clear  that 
we  could  not  have  rejected  the  symbol  unless  the 
substance  had  first  come  empowering  us  so  to  do. 
That  is  to  say,  we  as  a  people  are  without  any 
proper  political  and  religious  life  or  consciousness 
which  is  not  exclusively  generated  by  the  social 
spirit  in  humanity,  or  the  truth  of  an  approaching 
marriage  between  the  public  and  private,  the  uni- 
versal and  the  particular  interests  of  the  race ;  so 
that  our  future  welfare,  spiritual  and  material,  stands 
frankly  committed  to  the  energies  of  that  untried 
spirit.  Happy  they  who  in  this  twilight  of  ever- 
deepening  spiritual  unbelief  within  the  compass  of 
the  old  symbolic  Church,  and  hence  of  ever-widen- 
ing moral  earthquake,  confusion,  and  desolation 
within  the  compass  of  the  old  symbolic  State,  in- 
telligently recognize  the  serene  immaculate  divinity 


A  UTOBIOGRAPHY.  I  'J'J 

of  the  social  spirit,  feel  their  souls  stayed  upon  the 
sheer  impregnable  truth  of  human  society,  human 
fellowship,  human  equality,  on  earth  and  in  heaven  ! 
For  they  cannot  fail  to  discern  in  the  gathering 
"  clouds  of  heaven,"  or  the  thickening  obscuration 
which  to  so  many  despairing  eyes  is  befalling  the 
once  bright  earth  of  human  hope,  the  radiant 
chariot-wheels  of  the  long-looked-for  Son  of  Man, 
bringing  freedom,  peace,  and  unity  to  all  the  realm 
of  God's  dominion.  But  these  persons  will  be  the 
promptest  to  perceive,  and  the  most  eager  to  con- 
fess, that  the  family  bond  with  us,  as  it  has  always 
been  restricted  to  rigidly  literal  dimensions,  and 
never  been  allowed  the  faintest  spiritual  signifi- 
cance, so  it  must  henceforth  depend  for  its  con- 
sideration wholly  and  solely  upon  the  measure  in 
which  it  freely  lends  itself  to  reproduce  and  em- 
body the  distinctively  social  instincts  and  aspira- 
tions of  the  race. 


12 


CHAPTER   III. 

SAME   GENERAL  SUBJECT. 

^CONSIDERING  the  state  of  things  I  have  been 
^^  depicting  as  incident  to  my  boyish  experi- 
ence of  the  family,  the  church,  and  the  world,  you 
will  hardly  be  surprised  to  hear  me  express  my 
conviction  that  the  influences  —  domestic,  eccle- 
siastical, and  secular  —  to  which  I  was  subjected, 
exerted  a  most  unhappy  bearing  upon  my  intellec- 
tual development.  They  could  not  fail  to  do  so 
in  stimulating  in  me  as  they  did  a  morbid  doctrinal 
conscience. 

The  great  worth  of  one's  childhood  to  his  future 
manhood  consists  in  its  being  a  storehouse  of  in- 
nocent natural  emotions  and  affections,  based  upon 
ignorance,  which  offer  themselves  as  an  admirable 
Divine  mould  or  anchorage  to  the  subsequent  de- 
velopment of  his  spiritual  life  or  freedom.  Ac- 
cordingly in  so  far  as  you  inconsiderately  shorten 
this  period  of  infantile  mnocence  and  ignorance 
:n  the  child,  you  weaken  his  chances  of  a  future 
manly  character.  I  am  sure  that  my  own  experi- 
ence proves  this  truth.     I  am  sure  that  the  early 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY.  1 79 

development  of  my  moral  sense  was  every  way  fatal 
to  my  natural  innocence,  the  innocence  essential  to 
a  free  evolution  of  one's  spiritual  character,  and 
put  me  in  an  attitude  of  incessant  exaction  —  in 
fact,  of  the  most  unhandsome  mendicancy  and  hig- 
gling—  towards  my  creative  source.  The  thought 
of  God  in  every  childish  mind  is  one  of  the  utmost 
awe  and  reverence,  arising  from  the  tradition  or 
rumor  of  his  incomparable  perfection ;  and  the 
only  legitimate  effect  of  the  thought,  accordingly, 
when  it  is  left  unsophisticate,  is  to  lower  his  tone 
of  self-sufficiency,  and  implant  in  his  bosom  the 
germs  of  a  j(?«^/ consciousness, — that  is,  of  a  ten- 
der, equal  regard  for  other  people.  But  when  the 
child  has  been  assiduously  taught,  as  I  was,  that 
an  essential  conflict  of  interests  exists  between  man 
and  his  Maker,  then  his  natural  awe  of  the  Divine 
name  practically  comes  in  only  to  aggravate  his 
acquired  sense  of  danger  in  that  direction,  and 
thus  preternaturally  inflame  all  his  most  selfish 
and  sinister  cupidities.  Our  native  appreciation 
of  ourselves  or  what  belongs  to  us  is  sufficiently 
high  at  its  lowest  estate ;  but  you  have  only  to  dis- 
pute or  put  in  peril  any  recognized  interest  of  man, 
and  you  instantly  enhance  his  appreciation  of  it  a 
hundred-fold. 

Our  selfhood,  or  propritim,  is  all  we  have  got  to 
dike  out  the  inflowing  tides  of  the  spiritual  world, 


l80  AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 

or  serve  as  a  barricade  against  the  otherwise  over- 
whelming influence  of  heaven  and  hell.  My  body 
isolates  me  from  the  world,  or  separates  between 
me  and  the  outward  or  finite ;  but  I  should  be  lit- 
erally stifled  in  my  own  inward  genesis,  actually 
suffocated  in  my  creative  substance,  were  it  not 
for  this  sentiment  of  selfhood,  —  the  sentiment  of 
a  life  within  so  much  nearer  and  dearer  to  me 
than  that  of  the  world,  so  much  more  intimately 
and  exquisitely  my  own  than  the  life  of  the  world 
is,  as  spiritually  to  guarantee  me  even  against 
God  or  the  infinite.  The  world  gives  me  sensible 
constitution  or  existence,  and  if  consequently  you 
put  yourself  between  me  and  the  world,  you  doubt- 
less inflict  a  sensible  but  not  necessarily  a  vital 
injury  upon  me.  But  my  selfhood,  or  proprium, 
is  all  I  know  of  spiritual  life  or  inward  immortal 
being,  is  all  I  am  able  consciously  to  realize  of 
God  himself,  in  short ;  and  whenever  therefore  you 
impinge  upon  that,  —  as  when  you  assail  my  vital 
self-respect,  when  you  expose  me  to  gratuitous 
contumely  or  contempt,  when  you  in  any  manner 
suppress  or  coerce  my  personal  freedom  to  your 
own  profit,  —  you  put  yourself  as  it  were  between 
me  and  God,  at  all  events  between  me  and  all  I 
thus  far  spiritually  or  livingly  know  of  God ;  you 
darken  my  life's  sun  at  its  very  centre,  and  reduce 
me  to  the  torpor  of  death.     You  fill  my  interiors 


A  UTOBIOGRAPHY.  1 8 1 

in  short  with  an  unspeakable  anguish,  and  a  re- 
sentment that  knows  no  bounds  ;  that  will  stickle 
at  absolutely  nothing  to  give  me  relief  from  your 
intolerable  invasion. 

Now,  I  had  been  thoroughly  disciplined  as  a 
child  in  the  Christian  doctrine.  My  juvenile  faith 
as  enforced  upon  me  at  home,  at  church,  and  at 
Sunday-school,  amounted  substantially  to  this: 
that  a  profound  natural  enmity  existed  from  the 
beginning  between  man  and  God,  which  however 
Christ  had  finally  allayed,  and  that  I  ought  there- 
fore gratefully  to  submit  myself  to  the  law  of 
Christ.  I  never  had  a  misgiving  about  my  abso- 
lute duty  in  the  premises,  but  practically  the  thing 
was  impossible.  For  this  law  of  Christ,  as  it  was 
authoritatively  interpreted  to  my  imagination,  re- 
volted instead  of  conciliating  my  allegiance,  inas- 
much as  it  put  me  at  internecine  odds  with  my 
own  nature,  or  obliged  me  to  maintain  an  ascetic 
instead  of  a  spontaneous  relation  to  it.  If  there 
be  any  pretension  more  absurd  philosophically 
than  another,  it  is  that  any  person  or  anything  can 
act  contrarily  to  their  own  nature.  And  if  there 
be  any  pretension  more  immoral  practically  than 
another,  it  is  that  any  person  or  thing  ought  to  act 
in  that  manner.  No  higher  obhgation  is  incum- 
bent upon  any  man  in  respect  to  the  demands 
either  of  honesty  or  honor,  than  to  act  according 


1 82  AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 

to  his  nature ;  and  if  his  action  prove  to  be  vicious 
or  disorderly,  we  may  be  sure  that  his  nature  is 
still  imperfectly  developed,  or  is  not  allowed  fair 
play.  Of  course  I  never  actually  framed  the 
thought  to  myself  that  Christ's  law  as  interpreted 
by  the  church  was  essentially  burdensome,  nor 
should  I  have  dared  to  confess  it,  if  my  intellect 
had  been  ripe  enough  to  suggest  such  a  thing; 
but  I  instinctively  felt  it  to  be  so,  simply  because 
it  represented  Christ  as  sequestrating  to  himself 
henceforth  that  personal  allegiance  on  our  part 
which  is  the  due  exclusively  of  our  nature.  For 
this  according  to  the  church  is  precisely  what 
Christ  does.  All  men  have  forfeited  their  natural 
title  to  God's  favor ;  Christ  pays  the  forfeit  in  his 
proper  person,  and  so  confiscates  to  himself  ever 
after  the  debt  which  men  once  owed  exclusively 
to  their  nature. 

This  doubtless  was  the  reason  —  at  least  I  can 
imagine  none  other  so  potent  —  why  I  began  very 
early  to  discover  disorderly  tendencies,  or  prove 
rebellious  to  religious  restraints.  I  cannot  imagine 
anything  more  damaging  to  the  infant  mind  than 
to  desecrate  its  natural  delights,  or  impose  upon  it 
an  ascetic  regimen.  For  nature  is  eternal  in  all 
her  subjects,  and  when  the  child's  natural  instincts 
are  violently  suppressed  or  driven  inwards  by  some 
overpowering  outward  authority,  a  moral  feverish- 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY.  1 83 

ness  is  sure  to  result,  which  would  finally  exhaust 
or  consume  every  possibility  of  his  future  manhood, 
if  nature  did  not  incontinently  put  him  to  seeking 
a  clandestine  satisfaction  of  her  will.  I  felt  this 
impulse  very  strongly ;  I  doubt  whether  ever  any 
one  more  so.  I  had  always  had  the  keenest  savor 
and  relish  of  whatsoever  came  to  me  by  nature's 
frank  inspiration  or  free  gift.  The  common  ore  of 
existence  perpetually  converted  itself  into  the  gold 
of  life  in  the  glowing  fire  of  my  animal  spirits.  I 
lived  in  every  fibre  of  my  body.  The  dawn  always 
found  me  on  my  feet ;  and  I  can  still  vividly  recall 
the  divine  rapture  which  filled  my  blood  as  I  pur- 
sued under  the  magical  light  of  morning  the  sports 
of  the  river,  the  wood,  or  the  field.  And  here  was 
a  law  which  frowned  —  nay,  scowled  —  upon  that 
jocund  unconscious  existence;  which  drew  a  pall 
over  the  lovely  outlying  world  of  sense,  and  gave 
me  to  feel  that  I  pursued  its  pleasures  only  at  the 
imminent  risk  of  immortal  loss.  Just  conceive  the 
horror  of  leading  the  tender  mind  of  childhood  to 
believe  that  the  Divine  being  could  under  any  cir- 
cumstance grudge  it  its  natural  delights ;  could 
care,  for  example,  for  the  holiness  of  any  stupid 
day  of  the  seven  in  comparison  with  the  holiness 
of  its  innocent  mind  and  body !  Herod's  politic 
slaughter  of  the  innocents  were  mercy  itself  beside 
this  wanton  outrage  to  nature. 


1 84  A  UTOBIOGRAPHY. 

This,  accordingly,  is  the  offence  I  charge  upon 
my  early  religious  training,  —  that  it  prematurely 
forced  my  manhood,  or  gave  it  a  hot-bed  develop- 
ment, by  imposing  upon  my  credulous  mind  "the 
fiction  of  a  natural  estrangement  between  me  and 
God.  My  sense  of  individuality,  my  feeling  of 
myself  as  a  power  endowed  with  the  mastery  of  my 
own  actions,  was  prematurely  vitalized  by  my  be- 
ing taught  to  conceive  myself  capable  of  a  direct  — 
that  is,  of  a  personal  or  moral  —  commerce  with 
the  most  High.  I  do  not  mean  of  course  that  my 
individuality  was  perfectly  hatched,  so  to  say,  while 
I  was  thus  subject  to  parental  authority;  but  only 
that  it  was  altogether  unduly  stimulated  or  quick- 
ened, by  my  having  been  led  at  that  very  tender 
age  to  deem  myself  capable  of  maintaining  good 
and  evil  relations  with  God.  It  is  amazing  to  me 
how  little  sensitive  people  are  to  the  blasphemy  of 
this  pretension,  whether  in  the  child  or  the  man. 
That  the  stream  should  reproduce  in  its  own  sin- 
uous self  the  life  of  the  fountain,  and  rejoice  in  it 
the  while  as  its  own  life, —  nothing  can  be  better  or 
more  orderly.  But  that  the  stream  should  pretend 
actually  to  revert  to  the  creative  source  whence  all 
its  life  and  motion  are  instantly  derived,  and  affect 
to  deplore  the  tortuous  career  which  alone  gives  it 
phenomenal  identity,  as  an  absolute  defect  of  na- 
ture or  wrong  done  to  the  parent  fount,  —  can  any- 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY.  1 85 

thing  be  imagined  more  flagrantly  audacious  and 
impudent,  if  it  were  not  first  of  all  so  supremely 
stupid? 

But  be  this  abstractly  as  you  please,  my  own 
experience  profoundly  avouches  its  concrete  truth. 
The  thought  of  God  as  a  power  foreign  to  my 
nature,  and  with  interests  therefore  hostile  to  my 
own,  would  have  wilted  my  manhood  in  its  cradle, 
would  have  made  a  thoughtful,  anxious,  and  weary 
little  slave  of  me  before  I  had  entered  upon  my 
teens,  if  it  had  not  been  for  Nature's  indomitable 
uprightness.  It  aroused  a  reflective  self-conscious- 
ness in  me  when  I  ought  by  natural  right  to  have 
been  wholly  immersed  in  my  senses,  and  known 
nothing  but  the  innocent  pleasures  and  salutary 
pains  they  impart.  I  doubt  whether  any  lad  had 
ever  just  so  thorough  and  pervading  a  belief  in 
God's  existence  as  an  outside  and  contrarious 
force  to  humanity,  as  I  had.  The  conviction  of 
his  supernatural  being  and  attributes  was  burnt 
into  me  as  with  a  red-hot  iron,  and  I  am  sure  no 
childish  sinews  were  ever  more  strained  than  mine 
were  in  wrestling  with  the  subtle  terror  of  his 
name.  This  insane  terror  pervaded  my  conscious- 
ness more  or  less.  It  turned  every  hour  of  unal- 
lowed pleasure  I  enjoyed  into  an  actual  boon 
WTung  from  his  forbearance ;  made  me  loath  at 
night  to  lose  myself  in  sleep,  lest  his  dread  hand 


1 86  AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 

should  clip  my  thread  of  life  without  time  for  a 
parting  sob  of  penitence,  and  grovel  at  morning 
dawn  with  an  abject  slavish  gratitude  that  the 
sweet  sights  and  sounds  of  Nature  and  of  man 
were  still  around  me.  The  terror  was  all  but  over- 
powering; yet  not  quite  that,  because  it  called  out 
a  juvenile  strategy  in  me  which  gave  me  as  it 
were  a  wqw  pi'opriwn,  or  at  all  events  enabled  me 
bel  et  bien  to  hold  my  own.  That  is  to  say,  Nature 
itself  came  to  my  aid  when  all  outward  resources 
proved  treacherous,  and  enabled  me  to  find  in 
conventionally  illicit  relations  with  my  kind  a  gos- 
pel succor  and  refreshment  which  my  lawful  ties 
were  all  too  poor  to  allow. 

There  was  nothing  very  dreadful  to  be  sure  in 
these  relations,  and  I  only  bring  myself  to  allude 
to  them  by  way  of  illustrating  the  gradual  fading 
out  or  loss  of  stamina  which  the  isolated  family 
tie  is  undergoing  in  this  country,  and  indeed  every- 
where, in  obedience  to  the  growing  access  of  the 
social  sentiment.  Man  is  destined  to  experience 
the  broadest  conceivable  unity  with  his  kind,  —  a 
unity  regulated  by  the  principle  of  spontaneous 
taste  or  attraction  exclusively ;  and  it  is  only  our 
puerile  civic  r/gime,  with  its  divisions  of  rich  and 
poor,  high  and  low,  wise  and  ignorant,  free  and 
bond,  which  keeps  him  from  freely  realizing  this 
destiny :   or  rather  let  us  say  that  it  is  the  debas- 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY.  1 87 

ing  influence  which  this  civic  regime  exerts  upon 
the  heart  and  mind  of  men,  that  keeps  them  as  yet 
strangers  even  in  thought  to  their  divine  destiny. 
Now,  the  isolated  family  bond  is  the  nucleus  or 
citadel  of  this  provisional  civic  economy;  and 
practically,  therefore,  the  interest  of  the  isolated 
family  is  the  chief  obstacle  still  presented  to  the 
full  evolution  of  human  nature.  Accordingly,  even 
in  infancy  the  family  subject  feels  an  instinct  of 
opposition  to  domestic  rule.  Even  as  a  child  he 
feels  the  family  bond  irksome,  and  finds  his  most 
precious  enjoyments  and  friendships  outside  the 
home  precinct.  I  do  not  say  that  the  family  in 
this  country  consciously  antagonizes  the  social  spirit 
in  humanity,  or  is  at  all  aware,  indeed,  of  that 
deeper  instinct  of  race-unity  which  is  beginning  to 
assert  itself.  For  the  family  with  us  is  not  an 
institution,  as  it  is  and  always  has  been  in  Europe, 
but  only  a  transmitted  prejudice,  having  no  public 
prestige  in  any  case  but  what  it  derives  from  the 
private  worth  of  its  members.  Still,  it  is  a  very 
rancorous  and  deep-rooted  prejudice,  and  specu- 
latively operates  every  sort  of  vexatjpus  hindrance 
to  the  spread  of  the  social  spirit.  The  "  rich " 
family  looks  down  upon  the  "  poor "  family,  the 
"cultivated"  family  upon  the  "uncultivated"  one, 
—  the  consequence  being  that  this  old  conven- 
tion which  we  have  inherited  from  our  European 


1 88  AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 

ancestry  still  profoundly  colors  our  practical  ethics, 
and  blights  every  effort  and  aspiration  towards 
race-harmony. 

I  have  no  desire,  either,  to  intimate  that  I  myself 
suffered  from  any  particularly  stringent  administra- 
tion of  the  family  bond.  My  intercourse  with  my 
parents  was  almost  wholly  destitute  of  a  moral  or 
voluntary  hue.  Whether  it  was  that  the  children 
of  the  family  were  exceptionally  void  in  their  per- 
sonal relations  of  malignity  or  not,  I  do  not  know ; 
but,  strive  as  I  may,  I  cannot  remember  any- 
thing but  a  most  infrequent  exhibition  of  authority 
towards  us  on  my  father's  part.  And  as  to  my 
mother,  who  was  all  anxiety  and  painstaking  over 
our  material  interests,  she  made  her  own  personal 
welfare  or  dignity  of  so  little  account  in  her  ha- 
bitual dealings  with  us  as  to  constitute  herself  for 
the  most  part  a  law  only  to  our  affections.  I 
presume,  however,  that  our  childish  intercourse 
with  one  another  was  unusually  affectionate,  since 
it  incessantly  gave  birth  to  relations  of  the  most 
frankly  humoristic  quality,  which  would  have  been 
repugnant  to  any  tie  of  a  mere  dutiful  regard. 

Nevertheless,  I  was  never  so  happy  at  home 
as  away  from  it.  And  even  within  the  walls  of 
home  my  happiest  moments  were  those  spent  in 
the  stable  talking  horse-talk  with  Asher  Foot, 
the  family  coachman ;   in  the  wood-house  talking 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY.  1 89 

pigeons,  chickens,  and  rabbits  with  Francis  Piles, 
the  out-door  servant;  in  the  kitchen,  in  the  even- 
ings, hearing  Dinah  Foot  the  cook,  and  Peter 
Woods  the  waiter,  discourse  of  rheumatism,  metho- 
dism,  and  miracle,  with  a  picturesque  good  faith, 
superstition,  and  suavity  that  made  the  parlor 
converse  seem  insipid;  or,  finally,  in  the  bed- 
rooms teasing  the  good-natured  chambermaids  till 
their  rage  died  out  in  convulsions  of  impotent 
laughter,  and  they  threatened  the  next  time  they 
caught  me  to  kiss  me  till  my  cheeks  burnt  crim- 
son. These  were  my  purest  household  delights, 
because  they  were  free  or  imprescriptible ;  that  is, 
did  not  appeal  to  my  living  heart  through  the 
medium  of  my  prudential  understanding.  But 
sweet  as  these  "  stolen  waters "  were,  they  were 
not  near  so  refreshing  as  those  I  enjoyed  outside 
the  house.  For  obviously  my  relation  to  the  house- 
hold servants,  however  democratic  my  youthful 
tendencies  might  be,  could  not  be  one  of  true 
fellowship,  because  the  inequality  of  our  positions 
prevented  its  ever  being  perfectly  spontaneous. 

I  was  indebted  for  my  earliest  practical  initia- 
tion into  a  freer  sentiment  to  the  friendly  intimacy 
I  chanced  to  contract  with  my  neighbors  the 
shoe-makers,  whom  I  have  described  in  a  former 
chapter.  Unfortunately,  these  plausible  young 
men   had  really  no  more  moral    elevation  than  if 


1 90  A  UTOBIO  GRAPHY. 

they  openly  cultivated  some  form  of  dubious  in- 
dustry; and  they  were  willing,  I  think,  to  take 
advantage  of  our  boyish  frankness  and  generosity 
to  an  extent  which,  on  the  whole,  rendered  their 
acquaintance  very  harmful  to  us.  I  cannot  in  the 
least  justify  them,  but  on  the  contrary  hand  their 
memory  over  to  the  unfaltering  Nemesis  which 
waits  upon  wronged  innocence.  But  at  the  same 
time  I  must  say  that  their  friendship  for  awhile 
most  beneficially  housed  my  expanding  conscious- 
ness, or  served  to  give  it  an  outward  and  objective 
direction.  They  had,  to  begin  with,  such  an  im- 
mense force  of  animal  spirits  as  magnetized  one 
out  of  all  self-distrust  or  timidity,  barely  to  be 
with  them.  And  then  they  were  so  utterly  void 
of  all  religious  sensibility  or  perturbation  that  my 
mental  sinews  relaxed  at  once  into  comparative 
ease  and  freedom,  so  that  the  force  of  nature 
within  me  then  felt,  I  may  say,  its  first  authentica- 
tion. They  gave  me,  for  example,  my  earliest  rel- 
ish of  living  art  and  art  criticism.  There  was  no 
theatre  at  that  time  in  the  city,  but  its  place  was 
held  by  an  amateur  Thespian  company,  whose  ex- 
hibition they  assiduously  attended  ;  and  the  delight 
they  manifested  in  the  drama,  and  the  impassioned 
criticism  they  indulged  in  upon  its  acting,  made  me 
long  for  the  day  when  I  too  should  enter  upon  the 
romance   of  life.     They  were   also  great  admirers 


A  U  TO  BIO  GRAPHY.  1 9 1 

of  the  triumphs  of  eloquence,  and  I  used  to  bring 
collections  of  speeches  from  our  own  library  to 
read  to  them  by  the  hour.  It  was  a  huge  pleasure 
to  be  able  to  compel  their  rapt  attention  to  some 
eloquent  defence  of  liberty  or  appeal  to  patriot- 
ism which  I  had  become  familiar  with  in  my 
school  or  home  reading.  There  was  an  old  work- 
man in  the  shop,  an  uncle  of  the  principals,  who 
sacrificed  occasionally  to  Bacchus,  and  whose  eyes 
used  to  drip  very  freely  when  I  read  Robert 
Emmet's  famous  speech,  or  the  plea  of  the  pris- 
oner's counsel  at  the  trial  scene  in  *'  The  Heart  of 
Midlothian."  He  even  went  so  far  in  his  enthusi- 
asm as  to  predict  for  the  reader  a  distinguished 
career  at  the  bar;  but  apparently  prophecy  was 
not  my  friend's  strong  point. 


Note. — The  Autobiography  was  interrupted  by  Mr.  James  at 
this  point,  and  never  finished.  —  Ed. 


^pixitml  Creation: 


NECESSARY  IMPLICATION  OF  NATURE   IN   IT. 
AN   ESSAY 

TOWARDS  ASCERTAINING  THE  J?dLE  OF  EVIL  IN 
DIVINE    HOUSEKEEPING. 


13 


SPIRITUAL    CREATION. 


CHAPTER   I. 

THE  INDIGESTIBLE  NEWSPAPER. 

I  AM  distressed  at  the  aspect  of  our  newspapers ; 
not  chiefly  because  they  are  so  full  of  horrors, 
but  because  they  indicate  so  helpless  if  not  so 
indifferent  an  attitude  of  the  public  mind  in  regard 
to  our  growing  vice  and  crime.  Wickedness  in 
the  most  revolting  forms  appears  to  be  holding  its 
saturnalia  among  us ;  and  yet  our  clergy,  our 
lawyers,  our  doctors,  our  literary  men,  in  short 
our  moralists  as  a  class,  are  all  the  while  sleeping 
soundly,  and  no  one  apparently  is  on  the  alert  but 
that  very  nimble  John  the  Baptist,  our  modern 
newspaper  reporter.  What  is  the  inference?  Are 
men  losing  their  old  disgust  of  vice  and  crime?  I, 
for  one,  do  not  believe  it.  I  am  persuaded,  on  the 
contrary,  that  the  distaste  of  everything  that  wars 
against  the  soul's  health  or  degrades  the  body  was 
never  so  cordial,  so  implacable,  nor  above  all  so 
diffused  as  it  is  now.     How  do  we  account  then  for 


196  THE   OPTIMISM  OF   GOOD  MEAT. 

the  indolent,  imbecile,  laisser-aller  attitude  which 
our  leading  men  in  church  and  state  —  oiir*^  scribes 
and  pharisees" — are  content  to  maintain  with  re- 
spect to  the  rank  and  festering  outbirths  of  our 
modern  civilization? 

There  would  be  little  or  no  difficulty  in  account- 
ing for  it  provided  one  could  reasonably  look  upon 
these  men  as  ideal  good  men,  men  of  really  humane 
lives,  having  an  inbred  disgust,  a  natural  or  spon- 
taneous distate,  of  evil  in  all  its  forms.  For  such 
men  doubtless  are  content  to  separate  themselves 
personally  from  all  contact  with  evil-doers,  even 
to  the  extent  of  refusing  to  take  an  active  part  in 
bringing  them  to  judgment,  or  chasing  them  down 
to  imprisonment  and  death.  Indeed  it  is  the  wont 
of  refined  or  regenerate  natures  to  observe  the 
same  optimistic  attitude  towards  our  current  civic 
degradation  which  educated  men  exhibit  in  regard 
to  the  exercise  of  the  elective  franchise,  in  view  of 
the  fraud  or  at  best  the  violence  and  contention 
which  one  is  liable  on  occasion  to  encounter  at  the 
polls.  The  action  of  these  latter,  though  it  is 
greatly  complained  of,  is  not  at  all  illogical  from 
their  own  point  of  view,  which  is  that  of  a  tacit 
scepticism  in  regard  to  popular  government.  That 
is  to  say,  these  men  know  very  well  at  heart,  how- 
ever little  they  may  be  disposed  openly  to  profess 
the  truth,  that  no  government  is  destined  for  per- 


THE   OPTIMISM  OF  GOOD  MEiV.  \()J 

manence  which  depends  for  its  functioning  upon 
party  organization,  and  the  envenomed  trickery 
and  falsity  which  such  organization  is  sure  to  en- 
gender. And  they  do  not  at  heart,  therefore,  very 
much  mind  your  impassioned  criticism.  They  will 
go  forth  sometimes  to  please  a  friend,  or  to  protest 
against  some  passing  political  turpitude  of  excep- 
tional dimensions  by  recording  their  vote  in  favor 
of  an  unpopular  candidate ;  but  they  have  gener- 
ally a  great  aversion  to  party  politics.  In  fact  our 
government  is  emphatically  a  popular  government, 
the  only  truly  popular  government  under  the  sun ; 
and  that  is  the  true  excuse  it  offers  for  the  appar- 
ently infirm  practical  working  it  exhibits  in  com- 
parison with  aristocratic  governments.  If  it  were 
instituted  and  administered  in  the  interest  of  a  class, 
every  voter  no  doubt  would  be  eager  to  do  his  duty. 
But  it  was  instituted  in  the  interest  of  the  unclassed 
or  oppressed,  in  defence  of  the  victim  of  established 
civic  and  religious  privilege  wherever  he  might  be 
found ;  to  lift  his  children  from  the  dunghill  and 
seat  them  beside  the  princes  of  the  earth.  And  as 
soon  as  these  ends  have  been  accomplished  it  will 
shrivel  up  and  disappear. 

Now  we  have  all  of  us  an  intellectual  instinct  of 
this  truth,  sapping  the  patriotic  sentiment  in  us 
at  its  base  in  the  interest  of  a  broader  humanitary 
consciousness.     We  secretly  feel,  all  of  us,  some- 


iqS      the  inveteracy  of  their  faith. 

what  that  God  Almighty  is  working  out  by  hook 
and  by  crook  His  own  stupendous  will  of  right- 
eousness through  our  pedantic  and  frivolous  max- 
ims of  government,  and  will  be  sure  in  the  end  to 
overturn  by  means  of  them  that  mass  of  unjust  and 
decrepit  legislation  which  defiles  our  statute-books, 
as  being  no  longer  congruous  with  men's  living 
conscience.  And  how  can  any  one  so  persuaded 
sincerely  feel  that  it  is  of  any  vital  moment  to, 
human  progress,  whether  he  specifically  votes  or. 
neglects  to  vote? 

But  this  is  only  an  illustration.  What  I  adduce 
it  for  is  to  say,  that  if  men  who  have  a  sincere 
faith  in  the  beneficent  progress  of  legislation 
entertain  so  devout  a  conviction  of  the  iiecessaiy 
working  of  our  civic  machinery  as  not  to  feel 
themselves  or  their  ow^n  personal  action  at  all 
indispensable  to  it,  much  more  do  men  of  an 
enlightened  humanitary  faith  feel  secure  that  the, 
destiny  of  human  society  is  not  going  to  be  com-, 
promised,  but  rather  promoted,  by  our  existing 
civic  disorder.  In  fact  nothing  could  be  more 
fatal  in  the  estimation  of  these  men  to  the  race's 
destiny,  or  the  coming  of  God's  long-promised, 
reign  of  righteousness  upon  the  earth,  than  such  an 
improved  working  of  our  civic  machinery  as  would 
tend  to  reconcile  men  to  the  existing  order,  —  an, 
order  which    is  guaranteed  only  by  the  force    of, 


4RE   OUR  MORALISTS  GOOD  MEN?         1 99 

numbers,  and  hence  does  almost  nothing  to  soothe 
or  conciliate,  but  everything  to  irritate  and  inflame, 
the  fallacious  sentiment  of  selfhood  or  freedom  in 
the  human  bosom. 

But  we  have  been  hitherto  reasoning  upon  a 
false  basis ;  for  notoriously  our  civic  and  ecclesias- 
tical leaders  do  not  in  the  least  report  themselves 
to  the  popular  sense  as  ideal  good  men,  or  men 
of  an  enlightened  humanitary  conscience ;  and  we 
may  therefore  dismiss  that  solution  of  our  problem 
at  once.  They  call  themselves  "  conservatives," 
which  means  that  they  are  content  at  heart  with 
our  existing  civic  order,  notwithstanding  its  odious 
incidental  inhumanity,  or  approve  of  such  changes 
only  as  will  leave  that  order  essentially  unimpaired. 
Why  should  these  men,  then,  being  of  the  confess- 
edly conservative  type  they  are  or  believing  as  they 
do  in  the  essential  righteousness  of  a  government 
of  force,  exhibit  so  much  practical  insensibility  to 
the  loathsome  vice  and  crime  by  which  that  gov- 
ernment is  becoming  effectually  undermined,  and 
indeed  menaced  with  speedy  downfall  ? 

It  is  that  they  inherit  intellectually  a  fatal  delu- 
sion on  this  whole  subject.  The  reason  why  they 
are  content  to  forbear  any  active  effort  for  the  sup- 
pression of  the  hideous  evils  which  disfigure  our 
Christian  civilization,  is  that  they  do  not  believe 
the  divine  providence  to  be  at  all  properly  impli- 


200  THEIR  EGREGIOUS  UNWISDOM. 

cated  in  these  evils.  And  the  ground  of  their  un- 
belief is  undoubtedly  a  notion  they  cherish  that 
God  in  endowing  men  with  selfhood,  or  felt  free- 
dom, practically  divests  himself  to  that  extent  of 
his  proper  infinitude,  or  so  far  forth  releases  to 
them  his  proper  being,  constituting  them  each  an 
independent  centre  of  action,  and  reserving  to 
himself  only  the  vulgar  and  arbitrary  right  subse- 
quently to  reward  those  who  obey  his  revealed 
will,  and  punish  those  who  disobey.  Their  idea  is, 
in  other  words,  that  moral  agency  is  absolute  free 
agency,  whereas  it  is  at  most  only  qjiasi  free ;  and 
hence  they  conceive  that  in  creating  men  moral 
the  divine  being  perforce  absolves  them  to  that 
extent  from  his  dependence,  and  so  renders  them 
unconditionally  responsible  for  the  fruit  of  their 
activity.  This  is  the  only  way  in  which,  on  con- 
servative principles,  to  justify  the  divine  provi- 
dence in  respect  to  the  phenomena  of  our  moral 
history ;  for  if  man  were  not  to  all  the  extent  of 
his  moral  constitution  exempt,  as  our  conserva- 
tives hold,  from  the  divine  control,  his  false  wit- 
ness, his  theft,  his  adultery,  and  murder  would, 
in  their  opinion,  refer  themselves  not  to  himself 
but  to  his  maker. 

Here  then  is  the  answer  to  the  question  just 
propounded,  namely,  why  men  of  so-called  con- 
servative instincts  remain  practically  optimistic  or 


MAN  IS  NOT  BY  CREATION  MORAL.        20I 

indifferent  with  respect  to  the  spread  of  vice  and 
crime.  They  take  for  granted  that  man  is  a  moral 
being,  not  by  the  exigency  of  his  natural  constitu- 
tion merely,  but  by  the  necessity  of  his  spiritual 
creation.  They  suppose  him  to  be  invested  by  an 
absolute  divine  fiat  with  the  power  of  determining 
his  own  relation  to  good  and  evil ;  and  hence  they 
conceive  that  to  quarrel  with  our  existing  morality 
—  to  the  extent,  if  need  be,  of  wishing  that  the 
entire  voluntary  activity  of  the  human  mind  might 
become  obliterated  from  the  record  of  memory  — 
is  seriously  to  affront  the  divine  providence,  and 
provoke  signal  judgments  at  its  hands.  Such,  and 
no  other  that  I  am  able  to  see,  is  the  exact  intellect- 
ual pretext  upon  which  our  easy-going  conserva- 
tism reconciles  itself  to  the  actual  course  of  history, 
and  persistently  awaits  with  folded  arms  and  stolid 
brow  the  revolutionary  crisis  to  which  that  history 
is  blindly  galloping  on. 

I,  for  my  own  part,  renounce  root  and  branch 
the  conservative  logic.  That  is  to  say,  I  both  deny 
with  heart  and  understanding  that  man  is  by  crea- 
tion moral,  and  cherish  with  heart  and  understand- 
ing the  most  revolutionary  hopes  and  aspirations 
with  respect  to  our  existing  moralistic  regimen. 
I  wish  it  to  be  distinctly  noted,  moreover,  that  the 
discrepancy  between  us  is  not  merely  scientific,  hav- 
ing regard  only  to  the  surface  of  action,  but  strictly 


202  FALLACIES  OF  CONSERVATISM. 

philosophic,  as  reaching  to  and  renewing  the  very 
substance  of  the  mind.  The  conservative  idea,  for 
example,  is  that  our  selfhood  or  felt  freedom  con- 
stitutes our  true  life,  our  inseparable  being,  the 
sole  veritable  life  or  being  we  derive  from  God ; 
whereas  I  maintain  on  the  contrary  that  it  does  no 
such  thing:  that  it  constitutes  at  most  our  finite  or 
conscious  existence,  —  that  is,  the  mere  quasi  life, 
the  mere  phenomenal  or  apparitional  being  we 
derive  from  an  altogether  unconscious  natural 
community  or  fellowship  which  we  are  under  with 
respect  to  our  kind.  In  short,  the  conservative 
notion  is  that  our  natural  selfhood  or  felt  freedom 
is  given  us  not  as  a  means  but  as  an  end ;  that  it 
is  not  a  mere  constitutional  method  of  the  divine 
administration  under  cover  of  which  He  works  out 
the  most  exalted  and  adorable  spiritual  ends  —  ends 
of  a  really  infijiite  love  and  wisdom  —  but  is  itself 
the  veritable  end  of  creation.  Hence  they  never 
suspect  that  the  divine  administration  of  the  world 
is  inward  or  spiritual,  but  suppose  on  the  contrary 
that  our  public  no  less  than  our  private  conscience 
is  regulated  upon  strictly  outward  or  moral  princi- 
ples. Their  idea  in  fact  is,  not  that  the  private 
conscience  of  man  burdened  with  ignorance  and  in- 
firmity is  a  mere  providential  stepping-stone  to  the 
evolution  of  an  enlightened  and  permanent  public 
conscience,  but   that  it  is  intrinsically  superior  to 


ITS  STERILE  AXD    INHUMAN  LOGIC.        203 

his  public  conscience ;  so  that  any  man  who  con- 
scientiously maintains  in  opposition  to  the  revealed 
light  of  his  own  time  the  truth,  for  example,  of  tran- 
substantiation,  or  the  truth  of  Christ's  vicarious  sac- 
rifice for  sin,  and  the  right  perhaps  of  the  civil 
magistrate  to  bind  men  to  his  unconditional  alle- 
giance, merits  men's  praise  rather  than  their  blame. 
To  say  all  in  a  word :  our  conservatives  regard 
force,  not  freedom,  as  the  true  principle  of  God's 
government  in  this  world  whatever  it  may  be  in 
the  other;  and  hence  have  no  hesitation  in  char- 
acterizing our  existing  order,  which  is  vitalized  by 
force  or  the  rule  of  a  majority,  as  divine.  Of 
course,  then,  they  feel  no  sensibility  to  vice  and 
crime  in  their  spiritual  aspect,  or  as  they  inwardly 
affect  their  subject,  but  only  in  their  moral  aspect, 
or  as  they  outwardly  affect  other  people.  And  the 
law  being  presumably  quite  competent  to  deal  with 
vice  and  crime  in  this  their  purely  objective  as- 
pect, they  feel  themselves  exempt  from  all  legiti- 
mate personal  responsibility  on  that  behalf. 

I  repeat  that  there  is  no  apparent  flaw  in  the 
conservative  logic.  If  the  existing  order  of  human 
life  is  divine,  then  force  is  the  only  cognizable 
principle  of  the  divine  administration,  since  this 
order  is  guaranteed  only  by  force,  or  disdains  the 
sanction  of  human  spontaneity.  And  if  we  admit 
force  to  be  the  principle  of  God's  government  over 


204         ITS  STERILE  A  AD  INHUMAN  LOGIC. 

men,  then  manifestly  his  government  must  lay  its 
account  with  perpetually  provoking  the  antagonism 
of  human  freedom :  since  freedom  and  force  are 
wholly  irreconcilable  factors  wherever  the  former 
does  not  command  and  the  latter  serve  ;  and  human 
freedom,  whenever  it  is  forced  either  into  covert  or 
open  antagonism  with  established  order,  at  once 
and  of  necessity  interprets  itself  either  into  vice  or 
crime.  Law  consequently  as  the  symbol  of  order 
and  the  enemy  of  our  unrestrained  freedom  is  the 
pole-star  of  the  conservative  imagination,  and  re- 
spect for  it  as  established  the  sum  of  all  human 
duty.  The  conservative's  respect  for  law  is  so 
great  that  he  entertains  comparatively  no  respect 
for  any  higher  or  spiritual  interest  of  human  life 
which  the  law  may  incidentally  violate ;  so  that  let 
vice  and  crime  flourish  to  any  extent  they  please, 
the  criminal  or  vicious  subject  not  only  forfeits  by 
his  conduct  every  claim  which  as  a  human  being  he 
might  have  to  the  compassionate  or  sympathetic 
regard  of  his  fellows,  but  invokes  a  more  and  ever 
more  stringent  and  blind  application  of  legal  pen- 
alties. Thus  our  addled  conservatism  complacently 
stumbles  on,  only  too  happy  to  make  the  heartless 
fetish  it  worships  under  the  name  of  God  the  pliant 
vicar  of  its  own  crass  inhumanity,  and  never  dreams 
of  the  dread  abyss  which  must  erelong  ingulf  both 
itself  and  its  idol  forever  out  of  human  sight. 


ITS  PHILOSOPHICAL   FATUITY.  20$ 

I  have  let  my  pen  run  on  to  this  extent  un- 
checked, by  way  of  making  plain  to  the  reader's 
mind  what  I  conceive  to  be  the  chief  existing 
obstacle  to  our  indefinite  intellectual  progress ; 
namely,  the  incubus  of  conservative  prejudice. 
For  however  consistent  the  conservative  logic  may 
be  when  viewed  in  the  light  of  its  own  fundamental 
axiom,  which  is  that  of  the  divinity  of  force,  the  ax- 
iom itself  is  profoundly  vicious.  Viewed  by  the 
light  of  our  own  day,  the  sole  veritable  rule  of  the 
divine  kingdom,  whether  on  earth  or  in  heaven,  is 
freedom,  not  force ;  and  there  is  no  possible  antag- 
onism, but  only  the  fullest  harmony,  between  the 
divine  and  human  natures ;  for  in  truth  the  nature 
of  man  is  literally  divine,  and  it  is  only  his  person 
which  has  ever  had  any  valid  right  to  esteem  itself 
undivine.  I  am  saying  nothing  absolutely  novel 
when  I  say  this ;  for  the  conservative  himself  is 
willing  to  admit  —  what  indeed  is  necessary  to  the 
idea  of  creation  —  that  the  creator  is  essentially 
infinite^  as  being  able  spiritually  to  exist  or  go  forth 
in  created  form,  that  is,  in  the  natural  lineaments 
of  his  creature.  How  is  it  conceivable,  then,  on 
the  conservative's  own  admission,  that  the  creator, 
constituting  as  he  does  not  only  the  spiritual  being 
or  substance  of  the  creature  but  also  his  identical 
natural  existence  or  form  as  well,  should  ever  feel 
any  such   antagonism   on   the   creature's  part   to 


206  IS  MA  A'  FINITE  BY  CREATION? 

himself  as  to  call  for  any  other  regimen  on  his 
own  part  towards  the  creature  than  that  of  patient, 
unswerving,  unlimited  subjection  to  the  latter's 
will?  By  the  very  necessity  of  the  case  of  course, 
or  ex  vi  terminonim,  the  creature  must  prove  in 
himself  utterly  aliejt  to  —  that  is,  other  than  —  the 
creator,  since  otherwise  creation  must  collapse 
out  and  out;  and  the  only  question  consequently 
to  be  considered  is,  whether  this  inevitable  alien- 
ation or  otherness  which  characterizes  the  relation 
of  creature  to  creator  is  a  truth  of  consciousness 
or  a  fact  of  sense. 


CHAPTER   II. 

OUR  SENTIMENT  OF  OTHERNESS   TO   GOD. 

NOW  I  do  not  hesitate  to  avow  my  conviction 
that  the  sentiment  in  question  is  altogether 
a  truth  of  consciousness,  and  not  the  least  a  fact 
of  sense,  save  in  so  far  as  consciousness  involves 
sense,  and  puts  what  interpretation  it  pleases 
upon  it. 

Please  understand  me.  What  I  say  is  very  sim- 
ple in  form,  but  it  needs,  doubtless,  a  little  explica- 
tion in  substance.  I  say  that  the  sentiment  which 
men  have  of  their  natural  otherness  to  God  arising 
from  their  birth  in  space  and  time,  is  a  strictly 
subjective  illusion  of  the  mind  with  no  particle  of 
objective  reality  in  it.  That  men  commonly  judge 
otherwise  we  know.  They  conceive  that  nothing 
can  be  more  objectively  sure  and  demonstrable  than 
that  they  themselves  are  not  God,  are  indeed  most 
otJier  than  God.  For  identifying  themselves  with 
space  and  time  (or  their  sensible  organization) 
which  apparently  isolates  them  from  universal  man, 


208  SUBJECTIVE  NOT  OBJECTIVE. 

they  can  reasonably  come  to  no  other  conclusion. 
But  I  confess  the  conclusion  is  abhorrent  to  me  in 
the  abstract,  or  when  applied  to  universal  man,  be- 
cause I  have  no  particle  of  belief  in  its  premises. 
I  do  not  believe  that  universal  man  is  at  all  iden- 
tical with  time  and  space  limitations  (or  bodily 
organization) ;  and  I  deny,  therefore,  that  bodily 
or  space  and  time  limitations  are  competent  to 
alienate  him  from  God,  or  give  him  a  conscious 
otherness  to  God,  as  they  give  us  finite  men. 
Man  universal  in  fact  is  without  body,  save  in  us 
particular,  shadowy,  figurative  men,  his  body  being 
spiritual,  or  having  divine  and  infinite  dimensions. 
He  is  what  is  technically  known  in  Christian  litera- 
ture as  the  Lord,  or  divine-NATURAL  man,  who  is 
forever  freed  from  sensible  limitations,  and  per- 
fectly at  one  with  divine  love  and  wisdom  and 
power.  I  hope  my  reader  won't  insist  upon  my 
proving  these  things.  I  frankly  admit  that  I  can- 
not. For  to  make  a  thing  probable  (that  is,  prova- 
ble) the  thing  must  already  be  an  inference  from 
science,  or  sensibly  enforced  knowledge ;  and  what 
we  are  speaking  of  here  —  namely,  universal  man- 
hood—  transcends  the  sphere  of  science,  which 
deals  only  with  specific  or  phenomenal  manhood, 
and  certainly  falls  without  the  sphere  of  sense,  which 
utterly  denies  universals.  But  I  have  no  doubt 
that  if  I  were  only  able  to  do  justice  to  the  great 


MEN'S  BODIES  NOT  THEMSELVES.  209' 

theme  as  it  exists  to  my  own  mind,  my  readers 
would  not  be  slow  to  confess  agreement  with  me. 

If,  then,  in  truth  men's  bodies  are  not  themselves, 
how  will  it  be  apt  to  fare  with  this  unhandsome 
and  malignant  feeling  of  otherness  which  they  nat- 
urally cherish  towards  God?  For  our  sense  of 
alienation  —  or  otherness  —  to  God  is  based  upon 
a  presumption  that  our  bodies  are  identical  with 
ourselves ;  and  inasmuch  as  our  bodies  are  what 
limit  or  finite  us,  we  infer,  reasonably  enough,  that 
we  ourselves  are  by  nature  palpably  other  than, 
and  antagonistic  to,  God's  infinitude.  Take  away 
this  presumption,  then,  and  the  reasoning  engen- 
dered by  it  falls  at  once  to  the  ground.  I  do  not 
mean  to  say,  of  course,  that  we  in  that  case  should 
begin  to  consider  ourselves  personally  identical 
with  God ;  for  to  be  a  conscious  person  is  to  be 
,f^^-centred,  and  to  be  God  is  to  be  not  only  with- 
out selfhood,  but  identical  with  universal  life  or 
being.  Thus  to  lose  the  sense  of  personal  other- 
ness to  God  is  by  no  means  equivalent  to  feeling 
ontseM personally  allied  with  God,  —  above  all,  per- 
sonally united  Wxth.  him.  On  the  contrary,  spiritual 
nearness  to  God  implies  infinite  personal  remote- 
ness from  him,  since  God  avouches  himself  to  be 
universal  life  or  being,  which  is  flagrantly  incom- 
patible either  with  the  fact  or  the  sentiment  of  per- 
sonality.    In    short,   pantheism    is    in  no  sense  to 

14 


2IO  WHAT,  BY  THE    WAY,    IS  NATURE? 

be  considered  the  legitimate  doctrinal  outcome  of 
spiritual  creation,  or  God's  omnipotence  ;  for  pan- 
theism asserts  the  identity  of  God  and  nature, 
while  spiritual  creation  is  the  doctrine  (and  dis- 
covery in  fact)  of  nature's  fierce  and  untamable 
"  otherness "  to  God,  of  its  restless  and  ruthless 
oppugnancy  to  the  divine  name. 

What,  by  the  way,  is  nature?  Popularly  used, 
the  "  nature  "  of  a  thing  means  what  the  thing  is  in 
itself,  or  apart  from  everything  else.  Philosophi- 
cally defined,  it  is  the  principle  of  identity  in  exist- 
ence, forever  differentiating  creature  from  creator 
by  stamping  the  one  finite,  subjective,  conscious, 
the  other  infinite,  objective,  unconscious.  It  is,  in 
short,  the  principle  of  tincrcation  which  is  logically 
involved  in  all  created  existence ;  for  man's  spirit- 
ual creation  is  by  no  means  the  very  silly  thing  it 
is  sometimes  reported  to  be  when  it  is  character- 
ized as  the  making  him  out  of  nothing.  On  the 
contrary,  spiritual  creation  is  his  plenary  redemption 
out  of  the  death  and  hell  he  is  in  by  nature.  The 
creative  esse  is  infinite  or  omnipotent  love.  But 
there  could  be  no  love  (either  finite  or  infinite) 
shown  in  making  a  man  out  of  nothing.  A  man 
cannot  possibly  recognize  himself  as  being  made 
out  of  nothing,  and  can  only  conceive  himself  as 
made  (whenever  he  is  made  at  all)  out  of  some- 
thing, and   that   something   moreover   exquisitely 


MANHOOD  IS  REGENERATION.  211 

Ugly.  For  example,  how  do  we  speak  to  a  man 
sunk  in  vice,  and  appealing  to  us  for  help?  "  No," 
we  say,  "  make  a  man  of  yourself  first :  be  a  man, 
or  become  a  man ;  then  we  shall  gladly  do  all  you 
want.  But  there  is  no  use  in  doing  anything  at  all 
for  you  until  this  r^-formation  is  achieved ;  quite 
as  little  use,  in  fact,  as  it  would  be  to  an  architect 
to  build  his  house  upon  a  quicksand." 

Thus  common-sense  unmistakably  teaches  us 
that  manhood  means  what  is  opposite  to  .f^^-indul- 
gence ;  that  is,  means  the  absence  of  bestiality,  the 
cessation  of  voluntary  beggary,  or  the  vile  habit 
one  is  sometimes  tempted  to  drift  into  of  de- 
pending upon  his  friends  and  neighbors  for  main- 
tenance. It  teaches  us,  in  short,  that  no  man 
becomes  a  man  otherwise  than  by  the  foregoing 
of  evil ;  that  is,  the  renunciation  of  self. 

Now,  if  common-sense  teaches  us  thus  much 
about  manhood, —  namely,  that  it  means  J^^cleans- 
ing,  means  the  laying  aside  of  whatever  evil  at- 
taches to  us  by  natural  birth,  by  our  own  moral  or 
personal  delinquency,  or  what  not,  —  then  we  have 
an  infallible  guide  as  to  what  is  meant  in  our  spir- 
itual genesis  by  God's  creating  man  in  his  own 
image.  The  meaning  is  :  that  God  creates  man,  or 
gives  him  being,  in  no  other  way  than  by  spiritu- 
ally releasing  him  or  redeeming  him  from  all  the 
evil  wrapped  up  in  his  nature.     The  greatest  con- 


212  NO  MAN  NATURALLY  GOOD. 

ceivable  amount  of  evil  is  involved  in  man's  nature, 
because  in  the  first  place  his  nature  or  essential 
quality  is  infinitely  low  and  contemptible  in  his  own 
eyes,  being  that  of  a  creature  —  that  is  to  say,  of 
one  whose  life  or  being  is  really  not  in  himself,  but 
in  another  than  himself;  and  because,  in  the  second 
place,  this  life  or  being  of  his  (by  virtue  of  its  ex- 
pressing or  originating  in  infinite  love)  though  not 
really  in  himself  is  yet  apparently  in  himself  and  not 
in  another.  In  short,  the  nature  of  the  creature  is 
extremely  deceptive,  being  on  its  surface  a  gigan- 
tic equivoque  or  quibble ;  for  it  makes  the  creator 
practically  nought  in  it,  and  the  creature  himself 
practically  everything.  Thus  Adam  is  bad  enough 
in  all  conscience  considered  as  a  spiritual  exploit 
of  creative  power ;  for  he  has  no  phenomenal  life 
even,  no  sentiment  of  natural  selfhood  or  person- 
ality which  may  redeem  him  from  the  brutes,  by 
constitutionally  enlivening  him  to  his  own  con- 
sciousness, or  making  him  to  his  own  eyes  appear 
to  be.  But  Adam  complicated  with  Eve  —  that  is, 
endowed  with  natural  selfhood,  or  the  knowledge 
of  good  and  evil  —  is  an  infinitely  worse  exploit, 
were  not  this  natural  selfhood  or  phenomenal  life 
of  his  going  to  be  more  than  justified  in  the  final 
winding  up  of  things,  by  God's  most  intimate  and 
unstinted  spiritual  indwelling  in  it. 

Bear  firmly  in  mind  that  nature  has  no  positive 


NATURE  MERE  UNCREATION  OR  NOT-BEING. 21-^ 

function  in  spiritual  creation.  It  is  merely  a  nega- 
tive principle,  or  principle  of  uncreation,  implied  in 
everything  that  phenomenally  exists,  in  order  to 
hint  what  a  heinous  spiritual  quality  the  creature 
would  own  if  he  should  actually  exist  otherwise 
than  phenomenally,  or  in  himself,  and  apart  from 
his  creator :  so  setting  off  to  the  creature's  imagi- 
nation (or  enhancing  to  the  utmost  his  conception 
of)  the  creative  omnipotence  manifested  in  endow- 
ing him  with  spotless  and  immortal  being.  Nature 
is  always  to  be  logically  taken  for  granted  in  spirit- 
ual creation,  as  giving  the  creature  subjective  iden- 
tity, or  conscious  distinction  from  the  creator ;  but 
this  logical  virtue  is  all  the  merit  it  possesses  or 
ever  will  possess.  Especially  it  must  not  be  thought 
to  be  itself  created.  For  the  whole  and  sole  func- 
tion of  nature  being  to  constitute  that  suppositi- 
tious realm  oi  uncreation,  or  ;/c?/-being,  out  of  which 
man  is  logically  held  to  be  delivered  by  his  crea- 
tion, the  thought  of  it  as  itself  created  would  have 
no  other  effect  than  to  stultify  this  its  constitu- 
tional function.  Thus  to  look  upon  nature  as 
created  would  be  logically  equivalent  to  robbing 
the  creature  of  his  constitutional  background  or 
propritim,  because  it  would  make  any  such  back- 
ground or  proprium  plainly  superfluous.  In  short, 
it  would  be  to  turn  creation  into  child's  play,  mak- 
ing it  the  most  essentially  inert,  sentimental,  and 


21  d, HENCE  IS  NEITHER  CREATIVE  NOR  CREATED. 

absurd  thing  conceivable.  If  man's  nature  — 
which  is  his  sole  potential  source  of  death,  so  con- 
stituting his  whole  v&n\.3h\e  propriiiin — be  created, 
that  is,  converted  into  life,  it  must  of  course  utterly 
fail  to  attest  any  longer  the  quality  of  the  creature 
in  himself  as  a  subjective  antagonist  or  "  other  "  of 
deity.  For  in  that  case  his  nature  would  no  longer 
be  his  own  nature  (wrought  out  to  his  own  expe- 
rience from  chaos  and  ancient  night,  and  inefface- 
ably  stamped  with  his  own  signature),  but  some 
nondescript  nature  arbitrarily  conferred  upon  him 
by  his  maker.  Above  all  let  it  be  noted,  that  the 
creature's  legitimate  boast  would  be,  in  case  his 
nature  were  created,  to  present  in  himself  a  direct 
or  personal  image  of  his  creator,  which  could  only 
be  a  breathless,  dead,  mechanical  image ;  for  a 
spiritual  or  living  image  of  a  spiritual  or  living 
original  can  never  be  a  direct  or  personal  copy  of 
it,  but  must  always  in  the  very  nature  of  things 
(or  out  of  regard  to  its  own  identification  as  an 
image)  preserve  a  most  inverse  or  indirect  relation 
to  its  original.  In  short,  we  may  rely  upon  it  that 
a  spiritual  creation  which  should  attempt  to  pass 
off  the  creature  as  directly  —  that  is,  personally  — 
agreeable  to  the  creator,  would  confess  itself  the 
grossest  botch,  the  most  monstrous  caricature,  of 
creation  conceivable. 


CHAPTER   III. 

OTHERNESS   TO   GOD    UNSCIENTIFIC. 

T  ET  the  sentiment  go  then  as  a  dictate  of  con- 
sciousness. It  is  fallacious  enough  even  at 
that  valuation.  But  it  would  be  simply  intolerable 
if  we  should  put  a  graver  estimate  upon  it  by  allow- 
ing it  to  pass  muster  as  a  scientific  fact,  or  daUnn 
of  sense.  For  sense  is  the  realm  of  the  fixed  or 
absolute  in  knowledge,  supplying  the  scientific  in- 
stinct in  humanity  with  that  firm  unshakable  basis 
which  it  both  imperatively  needs  and  irresistibly 
craves.  If  consequently  our  feeling  of  otherness  to 
God,  or  alienation  from  him,  were  given  in  sense, 
it  would  fall  within  the  cognizance  of  science ;  that 
is,  it  would  claim  objectivity,  and  so  forfeit  its  title 
to  subjective  appreciation  exclusively.  For  con- 
science has  no  pretension  to  adjudicate  in  outward 
or  objective  things,  which  are  the  things  of  science. 
Its  sole  legitimate  business  is  with  the  human  sub- 
jectivity, whose  judgments  it  stamps  vicious  and 
vain.  In  other  words,  it  is  never  a  witness  of  what 
is  true  in  regard  to  all  men,  but  only  in  regard  to 


2l6  CONSCIENCE  A    LIVING  DEATH.  ' 

particular  persons ;  namely,  that  these  persons  are 
invariably  finite  or  dead,  being  consciously  made 
up,  not  of  spiritual  or  affirmative  substance,  but  of 
a  balance  between  good  and  evil,  or  heaven  and 
hell.  It  has  absolutely  no  place  save  in  application 
to  the  finite,  contingent,  moral,  empirical  man ;  the 
man  who  is  what  he  is,  not  by  force  of  his  spon- 
taneous manhood,  but  simply  by  virtue  of  his  vol- 
untary relations  to  other  men,  —  its  highest  function 
being  to  stigmatize  this  man  in  his  own  esteem,  or 
keep  him  spiritually  feeling  how  small  a  claim  he 
possesses  in  his  own  right  to  the  divine  compla- 
cency. It  may  be  called  a  tacit  negative  witness 
to  the  finite  bosom  —  the  bosom  fed  upon  the  con- 
flict of  good  and  evil  —  of  that  immaculate  life  of 
God  which  is  shut  up  in  his  own  nature ;  that  is,  in 
universal  man,  in  contrast  with  whose  infinite  grace 
and  loveliness  all  finite  or  personal  righteousness  is 
unclean  and  contemptible.  Thus  to  the  moral 
aspirant  after  righteousness  or  peace  with  God 
conscience  is  a  sentence  of  living  death.  And 
hence  it  constitutes  in  the  mind  that  entertains  it 
the  veritable  dawn  of  that  miraculous  spiritual 
world,  or  world  of  true  being,  which  every  man  is 
destined  to  enter  only  through  moral  suicide,  or 
inward  death  to  self  in  all  its  forms,  and  a  conse- 
quent spiritual  new-birth. 

It  is  commonly  conceived  by  our  modern  most 


THE  LAW  AND  ITS  SPIRIT.  21  y 

respectable  "scribes  and  pharisees,"  that  conscience 
or  the  moral  law  has  no  other  object  than  to  pro- 
nounce our  self-love  criminal  when  it  goes  to  excess, 
and  to  visit  accordingly  with  intense  divine  odium 
the  false-witness,  the  thief,  the  adulterer,  the  mur- 
derer, who  illustrates  that  excess.  It  is  true  enough 
that  the  moral  law  does  actually  stigmatize  men's 
overt  fraud,  duplicity,  and  violence  with  the  utmost 
emphasis.  But  rely  upon  it  that  this  is  only  with  a 
view  to  set  them  upon  observing  the  hidden  incite- 
ments to  these  things,  which  are  incomparably 
more  dangerous  and  fatal.  For  once  that  a  man 
is  tempted  to  do  overt  injustice  to  his  neighbor, 
he  is  tempted  fifty  times  to  do  him  secret  injus- 
tice in  the  way  of  maligning  his  good  name,  or 
coveting  his  property  or  life.  And  any  law  which 
induces  a  habit  of  introspection  in  regard  to  these 
meannesses,  is  incalculably  precious.  But  the  moral 
law  in  point  of  fact  does  not  exist  save  as  a  literal 
or  formal  denunciation  of  men's  natural  bad  man- 
ners with  respect  to  each  other.  And  literal  or 
formal  existence  is  one  thing:  the  substantial  life 
or  being  of  such  existence,  which  is  the  end  or  ob- 
ject it  acknowledges,  is  quite  another  thing.  There 
is  all  the  distance  between  them  that  there  is  be- 
tween earth  and  heaven,  or  flesh  and  spirit.  The 
object  of  conscience  or  the  moral  law,  for  example, 
cannot  be  identical  with  the  law  itself;  that  is  to 


2l8        LETTER  AND  SPIRIT  OF  LEGALITY, 

say,  with  its  own  literal  or  subjective  form:  since 
object  and  subject  are  hopelessly  antagonistic, 
object  being  always  spiritual,  and  subject  inva- 
riably natural.  Thus  the  object  of  conscience,  the 
end  out  of  which  it  grows  and  which  it  expresses, 
is  something  palpably  different  from  its  bodily  let- 
ter, or  its  material  subjectivity,  which  is  a  mere 
denunciation  of  man's  brutality  to  man.  You  can 
get  nothing  else  out  of  conscience  or  the  moral 
law  in  its  subjective  aspect  than  this.  It  is  nothing 
but  a  denunciation  of  men's  infamous  inhumanity 
to  each  other  when  they  follow  the  mere  light  of 
nature. 

Consequently  when  men  ask  the  meaning  of  the 
law,  the  spiritual  end  or  object  that  it  illustrates,  it 
will  not  do  to  answer  that  its  object  is  to  condemn 
man's  natural  selfishness ;  for  this  is  mere  stupid 
and  nonsensical  iteration.  This  condemnation  is 
what  the  law  in  its  literal  or  subjective  aspect  al- 
ready stands  for  to  the  inquirer ;  and  when  he  asks 
you  the  spiritual  meaning  of  such  condemnation 
(as  whether  it  is  simply  and  diabolically  personal, 
or  whether  it  is  instinct  with  God's  magnificent 
mercy)  he  is  not  at  all  content  with  your  foolishly 
pointing  him  for  a  reply  to  the  thing  he  is  ask- 
ing you  about. 

Least  of  all  will  the  inquirer  be  disposed  to  put 
up  with  the  answer  of  our  respectable  "  scribes  and 


GOD'S  ANIMUS   TOWARDS  EVIL-DOERS.     219 

pharisees."  Their  answer  to  those  who  ask  this 
question  —  to  those  who  ask  what  is  the  animus  of 
the  law  in  thus  stigmatizing  men's  natural  greed  — 
is,  that  it  is  to  express  God's  holy  abhorrence  of 
evil-doers.  This  answer  is  indefensible  from  any 
point  of  view,  being  logically  subversive  both  of 
law  and  gospel.  For,  however  excusable  it  may 
be  to  say  in  passing  that  God  hates  evil  doing,  it  is 
yet,  considering  our  total  and  exclusive  spiritual 
dependence  on  him,  shocking  blasphemy  to  say 
that  he  hates  evil-doers  also.  Hatred  to  evil  in  the 
abstract,  if  that  be  spiritually  true,  is  bad  enough 
in  one's  creator.  But  hatred  to  evil  in  concrete 
personal  form  is  infinitely  worse,  being  nothing 
short  of  devilish,  unless  one  chances  to  be  injured 
by  it :  which  is  a  liability  that  cannot  possibly  at- 
tach to  God,  since  he  alone  creates  men  good  and 
evil,  and  evil  men  therefore  by  the  hypothesis  of 
creation  derive  all  their  latent  and  patent  force  in 
the  long  run  to  do  evil  from  him.  Surely  one  would 
scruple  to  attribute  devilish  qualities  to  God,  seeing 
that  he  needs  them  not.  And  if  one  wanted  to  honor 
God,  and  not  dishonor  him,  it  were  infinitely  pref- 
erable to  think  of  him  as  stopping  by  his  omnipo- 
tent might  man's  earliest  inclinations  to  e\nl,  instead 
of  wilfully  hating  the  creatures  he  has  made  for 
doing  what  they  cannot  help  doing,  being  appar- 
ently the  very  thing  they  were  born  to  do.     No,  the 


220  HIS  ATTITUDE  NOWAY  SINISTER. 

only  logical  answer  you  can  make  to  these  ques- 
tioners is  to  say,  that  the  spiritual  purpose  of  the 
law  is  no  way  to  make  the  character  of  the  law- 
giver odious  and  detestable,  but  simply  to  drive 
men  to  j^^-examination,  in  order  that  they  may 
learn  betimes  to  avert  themselves  from  personal 
pride,  or  pride  of  character,  which  is  the  only 
thing  that  can  ever  spiritually  separate  them  from 
their  kind,  and  so  forever  prevent  their  inwardly 
making  the  acquaintance  of  their  creator  and 
maker. 


CHAPTER   IV. 

ERROR   OF  MODERN  PHARISAISM. 

THE  fundamental  error  of  our  modern  pharisa- 
ism  consists  in  holding  that  the  evil  which 
pertains  to  human  life  is  distinctively  moral,  not 
spiritual ;  thus  that  it  characterizes  men  in  their  re- 
lations to  each  other,  instead  of  characterizing  all 
men  in  their  relation  to  God.  Our  stolid  rulers  in 
church  and  state  allege  (and  our  whole  Christian 
civilization  proceeds  upon  this  shallow  allegation) 
that  God  is  spiritually  incensed  with  men  because 
they  bear  false  witness  against  each  other  or  commit 
some  similar  act  of  frank  atrocity.  It  is  impossible 
to  do  greater  spiritual  wrong  to  the  Divine  name 
than  to  perpetuate  this  superannuated  calumny. 
Indeed  if  one  is  intent  to  know  why  so  many  culti- 
vated men  at  this  day  are  found  to  doubt  and  dis- 
credit God's  perfect  name,  he  will  not  be  surprised 
to  learn  that  it  is  because  they  never  hear  that  name 
asserted  by  the  Christian  church  save  in  associa- 
tion with  this  or  some  kindred  calumny.  No  idea 
is  so  essentially  preposterous  or  unfounded  as  that 


222  GOD  HAS  NO  PERSONAL  QUARREL   WITH  MEN. 

God  almighty  has  any  personal  quarrel  with  men, 
or  is  capable  of  finding  fault  with  their  moral  con- 
duct, however  evil  it  be.  It  would  be  absurd  for 
any  one  to  credit  this  imputation  who  reflects  that 
the  outward  universe  on  its  face  (which  comes, 
as  men  think,  directly  from  God's  hand)  is  full  of 
forms  which,  though  they  are  not  nominally  forms 
of  deceit  and  fraud  and  adultery  and  murder,  are 
yet  substantially  so,  and  still  are  not  only  not  ex- 
posed to  God's  contempt  and  displeasure,  but  are 
daily  filled  by  him  with  the  utmost  vigor,  grace, 
and  beauty.  If  I  were  base  enough  or  irreverent 
enough  to  fear  any  treacherous  treatment  to  myself 
personally  at  the  hands  of  almighty  God,  I  should 
certainly  confront  him  some  fair  day  with  a  whole 
menagerie  of  fierce  robust  animals,  or  of  alert  pois- 
onous reptiles,  or  of  death-bearing  plants  and  min- 
erals, asking  him  or  his  attorney  to  explain  why 
all  this  crowd  of  futile  things,  which  are  practically 
so  immoral  as  never  to  have  felt  a  blush  of  shame, 
are  yet  able  to  preserve  their  innocence  in  his  sight 
unimpaired,  while  I  a  model  man  perchance,  at  all 
events  incomparably  above  them  both  in  my  nature 
and  breeding,  feel  myself  chock-full  of  guilt,  or 
what  is  the  same  thing,  of  the  most  poignant  self- 
condemnation,  towards  him?  But  I  am  not  really 
so  mad  as  to  attempt  measuring  myself  with  the 
most  high,  and  I  will  therefore  restrict  myself  to 


HAS  NO  FERSOiVAL  LIKES  OR  DISLIKES.  223 

protesting,  afresh  and  always,  against  the  existing 
Pharisaism  which  maintains  both  impHcitly  and  ex- 
phcitly  that  the  great  God  almighty  himself  is  so 
much  of  a  person  (or  prig)  as  actually  to  hate  men 
because  they  illustrate  the  nature  he  gives  them  by 
doing  evil  to  each  other's  person  and  property. 

I  hope,  however,  that  none  of  my  readers  will  so 
far  misconceive  me  as  to  imagine  that  because  I 
deny  God's  personal  dislike  to  evil  men  I  am  at  all 
disposed  to  affirm  his  personal  liking  for  them.  It 
would  be  a  great  gain  to  human  thought,  if,  in 
speaking  of  God's  liking  and  disliking,  we  could 
rid  ourselves  of  the  notion  that  either  of  them  were 
personal ;  that  is,  moral  or  voluntary.  Because  to 
think  of  God  as  actuated  (save  in  a  figurative 
sense)  by  personal  motives  towards  his  creatures  — 
or  what  we  in  our  infirm  speech  call  will —  is  really 
to  give  him  an  essentially  outside  position  to  them, 
which  can  never  in  thought  become  transmuted  into 
a  creative  relation.  Such  a  blunder  as  this  would 
involve  great  injustice  to  the  sovereign  truth  of 
things,  which  is  that  God  the  omnipotent  creator 
of  men  sees  no  difference  of  merit  and  demerit  be- 
tween them,  and  views  the  differences  which  they 
themselves  laboriously  construct  and  cherish  as  so 
much  rubbish.  But  surely  no  one  is  stupid  enough 
to  need  my  assurance  that  God  is  the  stanch  un- 
shrinking friend  of  good  morals  in  his  creatures, 


224       ADAM'S  DISOBEDIENCE  FORTUNATE. 

because  these  things  illustrate  and  avouch  his  es- 
sential humanity  or  justice.  I  for  my  part  am  only 
concerned  to  relieve  his  holy  name  of  the  imputa- 
tion which  the  orthodox  church  puts  upon  it,  of 
being  nothing  more  than  an  infinitely  small  mor- 
alist, intent  upon  forever  separating  men  into  good 
and  evil,  or  heaven  and  hell,  in  place  of  eternally 
effacing  these  odious  phenomenal  differences  in 
the  superb  and  deathless  unity  of  his  own  natural 
humanity. 

—  A  curious  contradiction  prevails,  by  the  way, 
between  our  orthodox  traditions  of  creation,  and 
the  bibUcal  revelations  of  that  fact.  It  seems  to 
be  agreed  among  ecclesiastics  that  the  original 
breach  between  man  and  God  took  place  when 
Adam,  who  was  still  a  denizen  of  the  garden  of 
Eden,  disobeyed  God  in  eating  of  the  tree  of 
knowledge  of  good  and  evil.  Now  to  constitute 
Adam  disobedient  in  this  particular,  it  must  be 
that  God  had  previously  forbidden  him  to  eat  of 
the  tree.  But  in  point  of  fact  God  is  never  repre- 
sented as  forbidding  him  to  eat  of  the  tree  of  knowl- 
edge. He  is  only  represented  as  making  death 
contingent  upon  his  eating  of  it ;  and  death  is  a 
purely  empirical  thing,  which  man  never  can  un- 
derstand but  through  his  own  experience  of  it. 
Thus  God  is  never  represented  as  saying  to  his 
clownish  creature :   "  You  must  absolutely  not  eat 


IT  MADE  EXPERIENCE  POSSIBLE.  225 

of  this  accursed  tree ;  "  all  he  is  represented  as 
saying  to  him  is :  "  You  shall  assuredly  not  eat  of 
it  witJioiit  dyingT  Adam  consequently  did  not 
disobey  God  in  nibbhng  at  the  tree  of  knowledge 
of  good  and  evil.  But  he  came  thus  into  the  knowl- 
edge of  a  finite  good,  a  good  limited  by  evil ;  a 
good  accordingly  which  he  was  never  intended  to 
find  life  in,  but  only  infinite  perplexity  and  death ; 
a  good  in  short  which  was  identical  with  himself , 
and  therefore  brought  him  to  self-consciousness  as 
an  essentially  finite  being,  profoundly  alien  to  God. 
Adam  could  only  have  disobeyed  God,  or  violated 
a  divine  commandment,  provided  the  command- 
ment were  absolute  or  unconditional,  which  the 
Eden  ordinance  was  far  from  being.  God's  com- 
mands are  never  absolute  or  unconditional,  because 
they  are  addressed  to  free  subjects,  —  subjects  who 
are  destined  to  be  good  or  evil  just  as  they  them- 
selves please.  The  only  death  Adam,  as  a  creat- 
ture  of  infinite  good,  consequently  was  ever  liable 
to,  consisted  in  his  actual  experience  of  this  moral 
freedom,  or  capacity  of  self-guidance.  He  and  his 
descendants  have  really  done  nothing  from  that 
day  to  this  but  fulfil  God's  law  and  exemplify  it, 
in  proving  to  so  many  men's  heartfelt  content 
spiritually  how  utterly  damnable  a  thing  it  is  to  be 
guided  by  oneself — that  is,  to  lead  a  wretched 
moral   and  rational   life  —  except   under  constant 

15 


226  MORALITY  A    VICIOUS  STATE. 

hope  and  expectation  of  soon  finding  an  infinitely- 
better  guide.  Morality  even  in  its  highest  possible 
evolution  is  no  way  near  to  spirituality,  but  all  the 
more  remote  from  it,  because  it  is  based  upon  the 
truth  of  selfliood  which  is  only  an  apparent  truth, 
while  spiritual  life  claims  as  a  basis  the  sole  truth 
of  omnipotent  or  creative  being.  Instead  of  being 
a  thing  to  be  proud  of,  instead  of  being  a  thing  for 
man  to  be  spiritually  honored  and  advantaged  by, 
as  our  foolish  churchmen  and  statesmen  report  it 
to  be,  morality  is  in  itself,  though  man  is  still  little 
conscious  of  the  fact,  a  truly  vicious  state  —  a  state 
indeed  of  spiritual  death,  out  of  which  there  is  no 
resurrection  possible  for  him  save  by  the  con- 
scious recognition  of  God's  omnipotence,  which 
sheds  such  an  unwonted  light  into  the  mind  as 
constantly  converts  all  that  men  naturally  call  life 
into  death,  and  all  that  they  naturally  call  death 
into  life. 

If  any  evidence  were  wanted  of  the  infinite  su- 
periority which  the  biblical  revelation  of  creation 
presents  to  the  conceptions  of  men  on  the  subject, 
whether  sacred  or  secular,  whether  traditional  or 
scientific,  it  is  to  be  found  in  the  fact  that  revelation 
makes  creation  spiritual  or  living,  while  our  ecclesi- 
astics and  men  of  science  always  conceive  of  it  as 
literal  or  dead.  Ecclesiastics  and  men  of  science 
conceive  that  men  are  altogether  sufficiently  ere- 


CONSTITUTION  NOT  CREATION.  22/ 

ated  when  they  are  naturally  born.  But  natural 
constitution  is  not  spiritual  creation,  by  a  long  odds. 
It  is  proof,  no  doubt,  to  our  heavy  wit  that  some- 
thing has  been  created :  but  what,  we  do  not  know. 
We  sometimes  fancy  that  the  creative  energy  is 
conspicuous  in  endowing  the  temperament  of  gen- 
ius, and  producing  such  persons  as  Shakspeare, 
Newton,  and  Franklin.  Of  course  the  Shakspea- 
rian  style  of  man  could  scarcely  appear  except  upon 
a  background  of  ordinary  men.  So  all  men  find 
themselves  somehow  created,  either  as  leading  or 
secondary  products  of  creative  skill.  Now  reve- 
lation makes  exceedingly  light  of  Shakspeare.  It 
takes,  indeed,  no  account  of  the  difference  between 
remarkable  men  and  the  vulgar  commonalty,  but 
sweeps  them  all  both  great  and  small  from  the 
floor  of  God  almighty's  workshop,  very  much  as  a 
carpenter  sweeps  the  shavings  which  encumber  his 
work  out  of  his  way,  and  consigns  them  to  oblivion. 
For  it  represents  no  man  as  really  created,  who  is 
unredeemed  from  his  natural  selfhood,  or  unclothed 
with  a  regenerate  personality.  Our  emulative 
Shakspeares,  Newtons,  and  Franklins  may  doubt- 
less find  this  law  hard,  and  refuse  in  fact  to  be  cre- 
ated on  such  preposterous  terms.  Nevertheless 
such  is  the  law  of  creation  which  revelation  disclo- 
ses, whatever  men  of  genius  may  think  of  it ;  and  it 
is  decidedly  wiser  at  the  start  to  try  to  understand 


228  ^^O   GOD  BUT  THE  ALMIGHTY. 

it  before  proceeding  to  reject  it.  I  am  persuaded 
for  my  own  part  that  there  is  nothing  really  hard  in 
the  anivms  of  the  law,  but,  on  the  contrary,  every 
thing  that  is  amiable  and  blessed ;  and  if  I  fail  to 
show  it,  I  hope  my  reader  will  attribute  the  fault  to 
my  intellectual  inertness,  and  not  at  all  to  the  law 
itself 

In  the  first  place  revelation  starts  with  God  — 
not  any  ridiculous  Tom,  Dick,  or  Harry  of  a  God, 
such  as  our  churches  abound  in  the  worship  of,  but 
the  great  God  ALMIGHTY;  that  is,  the  only  God 
whose  name  is  recognized,  or  whose  power  is  felt, 
in  earth  or  heaven.  And  then  it  proceeds  to  tell 
us  in  what  an  orderly  and  omnipotent  manner  he 
creates  the  spiritual  world,  culminating  in  the  unity 
of  man  male  and  female,  and  avouching  itself  fault- 
lessly good  in  the  divine  sight. 

But  now  in  the  second  place,  I  cannot  to  be  sure 
affirm  that  revelation  says  in  so  many  literal  words 
that  the  idea  of  creation  spiritually  involves  tJie 
actual  incarnation  of  the  creator  in  his  creature  s 
nature  ;  but  certainly  that  is  the  impression  it  leaves 
upon  my  mind,  and  fairly  interpreted  must,  I  think, 
leave  upon  every  mind.  For  after  describing  this 
creation  (which  is  only  visible  or  intelligible  to  the 
divine  mind)  the  narrative  plainly  gives  us  to  un- 
derstand that  our  empirical  or  finite  manhood  was 
not  at  all  embraced  in  it,  —  in  other  words,  is  not 


HIS  INCARNATION  IN  THE   CREATURE.     229 

spiritually  created:  as  indeed  how  could  it  be? 
For  after  all,  our  finite  empirical  manhood  is  noth- 
ing but  our  instinctive  ir/y-consciousness  ;  and  how 
self-consciousness  can  be  created  (that  is,  have  be- 
ing communicated  to  it  by  another)  I  am  not  able 
to  conceive,  except  at  the  expense  of  imagining 
creation  to  be  an  infinitely  profligate  work.  The 
realm  of  experience  with  us,  which  is  the  realm  of 
our  finite  manhood,  is  nothing,  I  repeat,  but  that 
inveterate  consciousness  which  we  entertain  of  our- 
selves as  naturally  constituted,  and  which  therefore 
we  inevitably  mistake  for  the  life  communicated  to 
us  by  the  creator.  The  mistake,  though  not  un- 
reasonable superficially,  is  very  profound,  holding 
all  the  possibilities  of  heaven  and  hell  in  its  bosom, 
and  through  them  all  the  possibilities  of  immortal 
life.  In  short  our  creator  has  nothing  to  do  with 
our  self-consciousness,  save  spiritually  to  keep  us 
from  being  swamped  in  its  endless  illusions.  It  is 
a  wholly  uncreated  and  fallacious  quantity,  and 
therefore  has  not  the  least  reason  to  make  itself 
heard  in  any  debate  about  the  creative  process, 
which  it  is  fatally  hindered  from  understanding 
except  through  its  own  voluntary  death. 


CHAPTER  V. 

NATURE  A   HOSTILE  ELEMENT  IN  CREATION. 

NOTHING  can  be  plainer  to  me,  after  what 
has  gone  before,  than  that  spiritual  creation 
involves  in  the  creature  a  hostile  element,  which  is 
his  nature,  or  sjibjective  quality  as  created  —  a  ser- 
vile, constitutional,  fallacious  element,  which  makes 
and  keeps  the  creature  in  himself  permanently  dis- 
tinct from  the  creator,  in  order  that  out  of  himself 
or  beyond  the  bounds  of  that  impertinence,  he 
may  be  perfectly  one  with  his  creator. 

Now  this  hostile  natural  element  in  the  creature, 
this  subjective,  fallacious,  contingent  element,  which 
is  only  intended  to  give  him  consciousness,  or  con- 
stitutional projection  from  his  creator,  is,  as  we 
have  seen,  no  way  real.  It  remains  in  itself  forever 
uncreated,  though  he  himself  is  created  out  of  it. 
Otherwise  there  would  be  nothing  to  hinder  his 
creation  turning  out  practically  an  abject,  disgust- 
ing pantheism.  Creation  would  infallibly  have 
proved  a  cruel,  remorseless,  all-devouring  panthe- 
ism if  it  were  not  for  the  evil  principle  in  the 
creature,  the  principle  of  natural  selfliood,  which 


OUT  OF  IT  COME  DEATH  AND  HELL.       23 1 

utterly  saves  him  (whatsoever  else  it  does)  from 
the  danger  of  being  swallowed  up  in  his  creator. 
Remember  that  the  nature  of  the  creature  is  not 
to  be  subjectively,  or  in  Jiiviself.  This  limitation 
inheres  in  his  nature  as  a  creature,  for  creature- 
ship,  so  long  as  it  persists,  necessarily  determines 
his  being  away  from  himself,  and  identifies  it  with 
another  than  himself  As  the  nature  of  God  the 
creator  is  to  be  both  universally  and  individually,  so 
the  nature  of  man  the  creature,  differentiating  him 
from  his  creator,  is  not  to  be  in  himself y  either  indi- 
vidually or  universally,  but  only  in  God.  Such  is 
the  necessary  quality  of  creatureship.  And  inas- 
much as  that  which  in  itself  is  void  of  being  or 
substance  is  a  fortiori  void  also  of  existence  or 
form  in  itself,  so  the  nature  of  the  creature  in  de- 
nying him  his  own  inward  substance  especially 
denies  him  his  own  outward  form.  We  may  con- 
clude, then,  without  hesitation,  that  the  nature  of 
the  creature,  or  his  spiritual  quality  as  created,  is 
neither  to  be  nor  to  exist  in  himself,  but  only  in- 
wardly to  appear,  or  become  self-conscious. 

Now  in  the  eyes  of  all  refined  or  cultivated  men 
this  natural  self-consciousness  of  ours,  though  it 
is  to  its  subject  a  seeming  life,  is  yet  in  reality 
a  most  living  death.  In  fact  it  is  death  and 
hell  combined.  Experienced  persons  have  al- 
ways, in  past  history,  recognized  it  as  death.     It 


232  PROF.    CLIFFORD'S  LIMITATION. 

is  only  within  the  last  century  that  it  has  taken 
on  more  sombre  colors,  and  made  itself  indistin- 
guishable also  from  hell,  as  these  growing  thou- 
sands attest  who  every  year  take  refuge  from  it  in 
suicide.  The  late  eminent  and  estimable  Professor 
Clifford  became  even  scientifically  convinced  that 
our  self-consciousness  was  a  sheer  imposture,  and 
did  his  best  to  warn  his  readers  that  it  had  no  sure 
promise  within  it  either  of  present  or  future  exist- 
ence. He  would  doubtless  have  deserved  better  at 
their  hands  could  he  have  persuaded  them  that 
this  same  fallacious  and  seductive  selfhood  in  their 
bosom  had  been  the  only  thing  after  all  that  ever 
had  had  power  seriously  to  degrade  them,  or  make 
them  fall  below  their  nature,  by  deadening  them  to 
heavenly  influences,  or  standing  obdurately  between 
them  and  the  creative  omnipotence.  But  Profes- 
sor Clifford's  animus  was  no  way  to  revive  men's 
religious  faith  by  making  it  more  intelligent,  but 
rather  to  destroy  it  altogether  by  depriving  it  of 
ne:ce:ssa.r y  pabulum  ;  and  I  will  not  be  so  absurd, 
accordingly,  as  to  find  fault  with  a  man  for  not 
having  done  what  plainly  he  had  no  will  to  do. 
But  one  hates  to  see  a  man  come  so  near  the  truth 
and  miss  it  after  all. 

Deck  it  out  as  we  may,  self-consciousness  remains 
for  man  the  only  evil  under  the  sun,  when  it  satis- 


DEATH  THE  TRUE  FRUIT  OF  GOD'S  LAW.   233 

fies  him,  or  affects  as  now  to  constitute  God's  most 
sacred  and  jealous  precinct  in  liim.  The  hopeless 
thing  about  it  just  now,  in  fact,  is  that  it  is  all  that 
man  believes  in  as  public  law  or  justice,  and  does 
not  hesitate  to  summon  all  the  dread  artillery  of 
heaven  and  hell  to  avenge  its  farcical  quarrels. 
But  God's  law  was  never  intended  to  subserve  the 
interests  of  man's  natural  self-consciousness.  It 
was  designed  exclusively  to  promote  the  interests 
of  that  regenerate  consciousness  which  is  built 
upon  this  natural  one  as  a  house  is  built  upon  its 
foundation,  and  which  only  tolerates  the  sentiment 
of  self  in  man  so  far  as  that  sentiment  subjects 
itself  to  the  higher  sentiment  of  the  neighbor. 
Men  totally  mistake  the  spirit  of  God's  law  who 
suppose  it  was  intended  to  minister  righteousness 
and  peace  to  the  skulking  or  unannounced  spirit- 
ual knaves  who  reverently  observe  it  with  that 
hope.  Death  utter  and  unmitigated  is  the  only 
boon  it  imparts  to  its  sincere  votaries.  They  who 
have  spiritually  obeyed  it  throughout  history  have 
always  found  it,  to  their  surprise  and  consternation, 
bristling  all  over  with  a  subtle  death  or  damnation 
which  baffles  all  hope  of  life  by  it.  They  learn 
that  the  distinctive  purpose  of  every  so-called 
divine  law  is  never  to  flatter  a  man's  self-righteous 
estimate  of  his  own  ritual  and  sentimental  per- 
formances, but  indefatigably  to  scourge  him  out  of 


234  CI/J?/ST'S  EXCLUSIVE   CREDIT  WITH  MEN'. 

all  reliance  upon  such  discipline.  It  spiritually 
justifies  every  man  who  sincerely  disregards  him- 
self, and  spiritually  condemns  every  man  who 
sincerely  seeks  himself.  God's  law  in  truth  is 
spiritually  only  another  name  for  men's  common- 
sense,  and  their  most  familiar  common-sense  at 
that,  by  which  they  daily  live.  For  our  daily  most 
familiar  common-sense  teaches  us  that  every  man 
is  eternally  righteous  whose  spirit  is  humble,  mak- 
ing the  neighbor  and  not  himself  the  rule  of  his 
action,  and  every  man  eternally  depraved  or  dam- 
nable whose  spirit  is  that  of  self-seeking.  Such, 
in  short,  is  the  vital  spirit  of  God's  law  by  which  it 
is  forever  separated  from  man's  law,  that  it  makes 
death  and  not  life,  hell  and  not  heaven,  the  invari- 
able guerdon  of  obedience  to  its  votary. 

It  is  ludicrous  to  see  the  pains  our  bewildered 
divines  take  to  dispute  the  praise  which  some  of 
the  sceptical  sort  are  wont  to  bestow  upon  Socrates 
and  Confucius  for  understanding  the  literal  drift 
of  the  Ten  Commandments  quite  as  well  as  Christ. 
What  is  gained  by  this  dispute?  What  would  be 
gained  even  if  we  could  make  Christ  out  the  most 
expert  prattler  in  legal  lore  men  had  ever  known  ? 
Absolutely  nothing.  Christ's  unique  credit  with 
men  will  always  be  that  he  utterly  despised  the  pow- 
er of  any  Ten  Commandments,  however  Divinely 
authenticated,  to  make  men  righteous,  or  reconcile 


DEATH  THE  INWARD   CLEANSING  OF  MAN.  235 

them  to  God  :  not  of  course  because  the  command- 
ments themselves  are  any  way  faulty,  but  because 
man  himself,  the  self-prompted  and  self-conceited 
subject  of  them,  must  needs  baffle  the  good-will 
even  of  almighty  God,  until  he  is  spiritually  new- 
born or  regenerate.  And  he  taught  his  disci- 
ples the  same  contempt  for  the  law  as  a  justifying 
economy.  The  only  knowledge  Jesus  Christ  ever 
claimed  as  at  all  peculiar  to  him  (and  this  is 
altogether  peculiar,  leaving  him  not  only  without  a 
rival  among  men,  but  without  a  second)  was,  that 
God's  law  given  to  any  people  could  only  be  a  min- 
istry of  death  to  its  subjects,  inasmuch  as  it  was  not 
literal  but  spiritual,  and  therefore  took  no  note  of 
the  utmost  personal  differences  among  them,  but 
commanded  all  men  without  exception  who  would 
spiritually  win  its  approval  to  qualify  tJicniselves, 
as  he  did,  by  dying  to  it,  and  to  every  literal  and 
fallacious  lust  engendered  of  it.  This  thoroughly 
manly  doctrine  of  the  Christ  in  respect  to  the  law 
as  offering  a  practicable  means  of  righteousness  to 
men,  would  afford  a  very  short  shrift  to  our  existing 
civilization,  considered  as  a  practical  antipodes  of 
it.  Of  course  one  can  have  no  quarrel  with  civili- 
zation in  the  letter,  so  long  as  it  merely  means  the 
maintenance  of  good  literal  relations  among  men 
while  as  yet  they  are  wholly  unworthy  to  be  called 
men.     But  it  is  hard  not  to  quarrel  with  the  drowsy. 


236         SWEDENBORGS  ARCANA    CELESTIA. 

ineffectual  old  thing  in  its  spirit.     For  citizenship 

—  which  is  the  only  boon  that  civilization  offers 
wherewith  to  pay  off  or  assuage  man's  immortal 
longings  —  is  surely  nothing  but  a  very  base, 
unworthy  counterfeit  of  spiritual  manhood.  The 
essence,  for  example,  of  spiritual  manhood  is  a 
feeling  of  intense  human  unity.  And  how  does 
civilization  contrive  to  clothe  this  intense  senti- 
ment? Notoriously  by  giving  it  outward  or  legally 
constrained  form. 

But  manhood  instinctively  rejects  such  clothing. 
It  will  have  simply  nothing  to  do  with  outward  or 
legally  enforced  form.     Why  ?     Because  manhood 

—  and  it  enjoys  a  monopoly  of  this  distinction  — 
is  born  from  within,  not  from  without ;  that  is  to 
say,  is  always  inspired,  never  imposed.  Its  only 
proper  expression  or  clothing  therefore  is  freedom, 
not  force ;  is  spontaneity,  not'will ;  is  goodness,  not 
truth.  Swedenborg  in  those  most  lovely  books  of 
his  (the  loveliest  books,  it  seems  to  me,  ever  writ- 
ten) called  "  Celestial  Secrets,"  gives  a  ravishingly 
beautiful  picture  of  man's  heavenly  or  married 
state.  Indeed  he  does  this  in  all  his  books,  which 
for  that  reason,  and  more  I  am  sure  than  all  other 
books  combined,  breathe  the  inmost,  most  innocent, 
and  tender  breath  of  our  divine-NATURAL  man- 
hood. I  strongly  recommend  any  pitiable  forlorn 
reader   of  my  own,  who  feels  the  need  of  a  new 


THEIR  INCOMPARABLE  INTELLECTUAL  VALUE.21'] 

and  more  vigorous  intellect  to  supply  the  place  of 
the  feeble  one  he  is  being  rapidly  sweated  out  of 
under  the  rude  agnostic  pressure  of  the  times,  dili- 
gently to  save  up  his  pennies  till  he  finds  himself 
able  to  buy  one  or  more  of  these  incomparable 
books.  For  though  I  have  now  not  looked  into 
them  for  many  years,  they  yet  have  made  —  every 
page  of  them  —  such  a  deathless  impression  on 
my  heart  and  mind,  that  I  am  sure  any  serious 
reader  will  be  infinitely  obliged  to  me  for  putting 
him  in  the  way  to  discover  for  himself  what  price- 
less living  truths  have  always  lain  sepulchred  under 
the  rubbish  of  his  now  lapsed  and  good-for-nothing 
ecclesiastical  traditions.  In  case,  then,  the  reader 
heeds  my  recommendation,  I  shall  well  know  how 
to  sympathize  with  his  delight  and  adoring  wonder 
in  learning,  inter  alia,  that  the  highest  manhood  in 
the  heavens  is  so  purely  spontaneous  —  that  is,  so 
little  voluntary,  so  little  self-conscious,  so  altogether 
impersonal  or  universal  —  as  not  to  permit  any 
angelic  spirit  to  feel  the  least  personal  shrinking 
from  the  most  palpably  evil  spirits,  who  however 
keep  themselves  at  their  own  agreeable  distance  by 
their  acute  distaste  of  the  unconscious  love  which 
the  angels  exhale.  At  all  events,  it  is  such  a  re- 
freshment to  me  to  believe  that  our  spiritual  man- 
hood is  the  fragrant  opposite  of  our  disgusting 
moral  or  earthly  manhood  (which  feeds  itself  fat 


238  THEIR  INCOMPARABLE  INTELLECTUAL  VALUE. 

upon  nastiness,  and  seeks  to  control  vice  and  crime 
by  the  pertinacious  use  of  their  own  most  direful 
weapons,  namely,  the  dungeon  and  the  scaffold), 
that  I  cannot  help  supposing  it  will  be  so  to  every 
one  else,  and  therefore  never  fail  to  recommend  to 
other  persons  (somewhat  indiscreetly  perhaps)  the 
books  in  which  the  lesson  of  the  difference  is  most 
egregiously  asserted. 


CHAPTER  VI. 

GRANDEUR  OF  CREATIVE  NAME. 

ONE  brief  question  more,  and  then  I  think  we 
shall  begin  fully  to  understand  the  road  we 
are  going. 

What  precise  peculiarity  is  it  in  spiritual  creation 
that  makes  this  implication  of  nature  so  indispen- 
sable to  it?  In  other  words,  what  grandeur  does 
it  avouch  in  the  creative  name  that  it  is  not  afraid 
to  make  evil  or  hell  the  constitutional  stuff  of  the 
creature's  consciousness? 

The  peculiar  grandeur  thus  announced  is  that 
the  creator's  name  is  omnipotent,  or  essentially  mi- 
raculous. That  is  to  say,  it  works  unconditionally, 
supplying  itself  both  the  optis  and  the  matcries  of 
creation ;  both  the  conscious  personality  and  the 
unconscious  nature  of  the  creature,  both  his  natu- 
ral identity  and  his  spiritual  individuality,  both  his 
phenomenal  subjectivity  and  his  real  objectivity. 
It  is  needless  to  say  that  ws  cannot  work  without 
conditions  of  all  sorts ;  for  this  is  equivalent  to  say- 
ing that  our  power  is  not  creative  in  the  least,  but 


240  IT   GIVES   US  IMMORTAL  BEING. 

simply  formative.  We  have  indeed  the  power  to 
make  things,  or  give  them  outward  and  dead  form. 
But  we  have  no  power  to  create  things,  or  give 
them  inward  and  hving  being,  as  God  does.  He 
gives  all  things  —  the  foulest  and  most  venomous 
—  inward  being  or  living  substance,  because  he 
himself  is  inward  being  or  living  substance.  And 
we  give  the  things  we  make  outward  or  lifeless 
form,  because  we,  being  creatures,  are  ourselves 
outward  or  lifeless  form,  nothing  more.  The  infi- 
nite and  eternal  distance  between  God  and  our- 
selves hinges  upon  the  truth  that  creation  is 
spiritual,  direct,  living,  not  natural,  indirect,  dead; 
which  is  the  same  as  saying  that  the  creator  is  inva- 
riably subject  with  respect  to  us,  and  we  invaria- 
bly object  with  respect  to  him.  How  should  he  be 
as  he  is  the  very  breath  of  my  nostrils,  how  should 
he  be  as  he  is  the  endless  joy  of  my  heart,  if  his 
omnipotence  did  not  ever  and  anon  turn  the  tables 
upon  my  natural  conceit  and  ignorance,  and  show 
him  to  be  true  invariable  subject  of  my  infamy, 
and  myself  true  invariable  object  of  Jiis  infinite 
care  and  tenderness?  This  comes  of  his  being 
unchangeably  creative  with  respect  to  us,  and  of 
our  being  unchangeably  formative  with  respect  to 
him.  In  other  words,  the  creator  is  of  necessity 
inward  being  or  substance  to  his  creature ;  and  the 
creature  is  of  like  necessity  outward  existence  or 


LITTLENESS  OF  CREATED  NAME.  24 1 

form  to  the  creator.  For  Inward  being  or  substance 
(which  is  infinite  and  creative)  cannot  of  course  be 
its  own  outward  existence  or  form,  because  this 
would  make  it  to  exist  outside  of  itself,  outside  of 
its  own  infinitude.  It  cannot  pretend  to  exist 
outside  of  itself,  or  attain  in  any  way  to  sensible 
recognition,  save  in  relative,  contingent,  or  natural 
form,  which  in  itself  is  a  mere  semblance  or  shadow 
of  existence,  however  it  may  seem  to  itself  to  be 
endowed  with  a  real  plethora  of  it. 

It  is  unquestionably  stupid  in  the  creature  ever 
to  affect  to  be  anything  more  than  outward  form 
or  existence  to  the  creator;  but  it  is  obvious  that 
he  knows  no  better,  and  his  fault  therefore  is  infi- 
nitely excusable.  Indeed  his  ignorance  upon  the 
subject  of  spiritual  existence  is  as  dense  as  mid- 
night, and  he  is  even  naive  enough,  with  Kant,  to 
deem  himself /^^V  own  inward  being  or  substance.  No 
wonder,  then,  he  should  find  it  impossible  to  come 
of  himself  to  the  humbling  conviction  —  though 
in  that  conviction  alone  is  immortal  life  —  that  he 
himself  (all  told)  is  really  as  creature  the  mere 
"other"  or  alternate  of  his  creator,  serving  but  to 
mask  or  obscure  the  omnipotence  of  his  principal. 
Surely  this  inveterate  stolidity  on  the  creature's 
part  does  n't  derive  from  the  adorable  example  the 
creator  sets  him.     For  the  creator  is  so  perfectly 

content  with  his  own  unostentatious  position  and 

16 


242  IT  GIVES  US  MERE  FORM  OR  APPEARANCE. 

function,  and  so  little  disposed  to  encroach  upon 
the  role  of  the  creature,  that  he  apparently  aban- 
dons the  outward  and  sensible  universe  to  the  lat- 
ter's  prudence,  and  will  not  move  a  step  in  redeem- 
ing it  from  chaos  without  the  creature's  initiative, 
or  at  least  his  full  and  hearty  concurrence. 

Now  power  of  this  unconditional  sort  —  w'hich 
not  only  exacts  no  favorable  conditions  for  itself, 
but  works  out  its  will  through  the  most  adverse 
conditions  —  is  what  men  mean  by  omnipotence, 
or  power  essentially  miraculous.  Miraculous  power 
is  not,  as  it  is  vulgarly  thought  to  be,  a  power  to 
violate  the  order  of  the  senses,  or  undo  men's  re- 
spect for  fact.  If  miracle  were  this,  it  would  be  of 
course  downright  absurdity.  It  is  a  power  to  en- 
liven the  senses,  and  make  the  most  ordinary  facts 
of  experience  attest  the  omnipotent  force  which, 
although  latent,  is  alone  active  in  our  nature,  as 
well  as  attest  the  sovereign  humanity  of  this  force. 
This  at  least  is  what  the  Christian  miracles  mean  to 
me.  From  the  beginning  of  them  in  Cana  of  Gali- 
lee, where  at  the  nuptial  feast  Christ  converted  the 
water  into  wine  (by  way  of  hinting  to  men's  senses 
that  marriage  was  wholly  a  living  or  spiritual  tie 
between  the  sexes  —  a  fruit  indeed  of  the  highest 
possible  spiritual  culture  or  regeneration  —  and 
no  mere  carnal  and  disgusting  civic  or  voluntary 
compact  between  a  man  and  woman  to   come  to- 


MEANING   OF  CHRIST S  MIRACLES.  243 

gether  to  breed  carnal  and  disgusting  offspring), 
down  to  that  magnificent  one  which  ended  the  se- 
ries ;  namely,  his  showing  himself  alive  after  death, 
—  they  all  directly  address  men's  senses  as  the  only 
real,  objective,  and  unconscious  force  in  them, 
to  the  denial  of  their  subjective,  phenomenal,  or 
conscious  force.  Just,  in  fact,  as  Christ's  dogmatic 
precepts  seem  always  intended  to  shock  the  preju- 
dices of  the  conventionally  devout  and  righteous 
among  his  hearers,  and  inspire  the  enthusiasm  of 
the  conventionally  reprobate  class,  so  I  confess  his 
miracles  always  seem  to  me  intended  to  paralyze 
and  put  an  end  to  this  dismal  and  deathful  life  of 
routine  (or  personal  observance)  under  which  all 
but  the  most  frivolous  of  men  are  languishing  and 
ready  to  perish,  by  flashing  the  conviction  home 
upon  us  that  we  have  an  endless  divine  innocence, 
peace,  and  power  stored  up  for  us  in  God's  NATU- 
RAL humanity,  if  we  would  only  consent  to  con- 
fide for  a  moment  in  that  most  holy  and  universal 
reality,  and  look  away  for  a  like  moment  from  our 
own  petty,  pharisaic,  most  histrionic,  and  meretri- 
cious selves. 

Now  if  it  be  true  that  nature,  as  I  have  said,  is 
only  the  principle  of  identity  in*  the  creature,  giv- 
ing him  a  strictly  universal  subjectivity,  or  making 
him  the  measure  of  all  things,  then  it  is  perfectly 
clear  that  it  is  also  wholly   inimical  to  that  inward 


244  NATURE  IGNORES  PERSONALITY. 

individuality,  or  spiritual  distinction,  which  man  is 
so  apt  to  claim  for  himself  among  his  fellows  or 
equals.  Nature  says  in  effect  that  man  has  no 
more  title  to  personal  consciousness  in  himself — 
to  inward  individuality  or  difference  from  other 
men  —  than  horses  and  dogs  have:  thus  arraying 
him  in  perpetual  conflict  with  himself,  or  making 
war  the  sole  legitimate  fruit  of  his  consciousness. 
To  be  sure  it  may  be  said  that  nature  is  undefined 
or  universal,  and  being  therefore  unconscious  or 
impersonal  in  herself  must  be  expected  to  ignore 
personality  in  her  offspring,  not  discerning  the  im- 
mense spiritual  uses  it  lends  itself  to  in  the  crea- 
tive economy.  But  I  don't  see,  I  confess,  what  is 
gained  by  this,  save  a  clearer  insight  into  the  nega- 
tive function  of  nature.  Whatever  nature  may  be 
defined  to  be,  she  is  certainly  none  the  less  the 
sole  law  or  limit  of  man's  constitutional  possibil- 
ities, none  the  less  the  sole  measure  of  what  he  is 
and  always  must  be  in  himself.  She  is  the  exclu- 
sive rule  or  basis  of  what  he  deems  his  person- 
ality. He  has  no  constitutional  existence  apart 
from  his  nature;  and  if  his  nature  says,  accord- 
ingly, that  he  has  no  individual  right  in  himself  to 
exist,  or  to  exist  in  distinction  from  other  men, 
I  do  not  see  why  the  judgment  is  not  at  once 
final. 

That  nature  does  practically  say  this  there  can 


SHE  STAMPS  MAN  UNIVERSAL.  245 

be  no  doubt.  She  is  the  clearest  possible  affir- 
mation of  man's  universality  as  against  the  preten- 
sions of  the  mineral,  vegetable,  and  animal  types 
of  existence ;  and  if  she  affirms  his  legitimate 
universality  so  far  as  they  are  concerned,  she  un- 
questionably denies  to  that  extent  his  legitimate 
individuality.  One  cannot  be  by  nature  universal 
and  particular,  or  public  and  private,  both,  short  of 
being  infinite  or  creative,  which  man  surely  is  not. 
And  if  his  nature  stamps  him  universal  alone,  we 
must  evidently  seek  the  explanation  of  his  private 
or  particular  manhood  elsewhere  than  in  his  na- 
ture. His  nature  (or  essential  quality  as  created^ 
leaves  him  destitute  of  life  or  being  ///  himself,  pro- 
nounces him  absolute  possessor  of  nothing,  and 
consequently  makes  his  pretension  to  individual 
subjectivity,  or  conscious  distinction  from  his  fel- 
lows, preposterous  in  the  extreme.  The  meaning 
of  nature,  in  fact,  is  downright  community  to  all 
who  derive  from  it  —  community,  and  not  society. 
And  how  any  one,  therefore,  by  her  inspiration  can 
insist  upon  being  a  person  —  that  is,  upon  holding 
himself  liable  for  his  actions  —  I  am  at  a  total  loss 
to  divine  upon  any  other  hypothesis  than  that  na- 
ture, after  all  is  said  and  done,  is  but  a  MASK  of  the 
creative  infinitude  or  omnipotence,  behind  which 
the  creator  allows  himself  to  fool  his  ignorant 
and  conceited  rabble  of  creatures  to  the  very  top 


246  NATURE  IMPALPABLE    TO  SENSE. 

of  their  bent,  in  order  the  more  surely  to  compass 
their  final  and  perfect  redemption  from  it. 

This  hypothesis  is  by  no  means  difficult  to  main- 
tain, as  it  doubtless  would  be  if  nature  had  the 
least  sensible  existence,  or  ever  revealed  itself  to 
us  as  a  thing.  But  nature  is  profoundly  incapable 
of  such  2i  faux  pas.  She  never  assumes  in  her  own 
right  to  be  more  than  logically  cognizable.  We 
ourselves  sometimes  identify  her  with  all  tilings,  or 
the  material  realm.  But  this  generalization  on  our 
part  is  full  surely  allowable,  as  we  only  mean  by  it 
that  nothing  exists  save  upon  a  natural  or  universal 
basis,  and  have  no  thought  of  attributing  to  nature 
herself  a  particular  embodiment.  Nature  is  said 
to  be  what  exists  everywhere  in  general,  and  yet 
nowhere  in  especial.  Surely  if  she  be  taken  for 
all  that  appears  to  our  senses,  she  cannot  herself 
be  ajtytking  that  so  appears,  for  this  would  involve 
contradiction.  In  fact,  she  is  merely  the  genera- 
tive, constitutional,  subjective,  or  maternal  princi- 
ple which  we  by  defect  of  understanding  insist 
upon  bringing  into  things  in  order  not  to  account 
for  any  thing  absolutely,  but  to  account  for  its 
appearance  to  us.  She  has  accordingly  a  purely 
logical  or  metaphysical  reality  with  reference  to 
everything  embraced  in  the  sphere  of  sense  or  the 
world  of  space  and  time.  Every  mineral,  every 
vegetable,  and  every  animal  in  the   universe  falls 


hHE  EXISTS  ONLY  TO    THOUGHT.  247 

within  the  realm  of  physics ;  that  is,  claims  to  be 
real  by  no  right  of  nature,  but  only  by  virtue  of  its 
appearing  to  sense.  But  yet  nature  herself,  though 
we  insist  upon  her  being  the  indubitable  parent  of 
all  the  physical  reality  we  know,  has  not  a  particle 
of  physical  reality,  but  is  merely  taken  for  granted 
by  us  as  the  producing  cause  of  things.  Her  ex- 
istence, I  repeat,  is  wholly  metaphysical  or  unreal, 
having  no  guarantee  but  our  logic.  The  brutes  do 
not  in  the  least  recognize  nature,  because  in  the 
first  place  she  does  not  fall  under  the  senses,  and 
because  in  the  second  they  have  no  guiding  and 
governing  word  connecting  their  understanding 
spiritually  with  God.  For  nature  is  simply  the 
first  syllabling  of  that  uncreated  word  which  con- 
ditions all  created  existence  to  thought;  and  as  a 
word  does  not  and  cannot  exist  save  to  thought, 
we  instinctively  restrict  nature  to  a  purely  logical 
reality.  She  may  be  called,  in  fine,  the  literal, 
mystical,  infantile  form  of  that  almighty  and  ador- 
able creative  word  by  which  all  things  whether 
on  earth  or  in  heaven  are  spiritually  made.  Noth- 
ing is  clearer  than  that  what  we  call  physics,  or 
the  finite,  appears  to  God  only  through  us ;  that 
is,  through  his  identification  with  otir  nature  — 
which  being  undefined  or  universal  represents  both 
infinite  and  finite,  and  gives  therefore  its  only  proper 
and  adequate    divine  subject  the  mastery  of  both 


248      IS  OUR  SOLE  DIVINE  PROPEDEUTICS. 

realms,  or  a  perfect  knowledge  of  good  and  evil. 
Hence,  too,  we  perceive  the  importance  of  the 
creative  word,  which  as  the  expression  or  instru- 
ment of  this  perfect  knowledge  on  God's  part  must 
exercise  a  supreme  influence  in  moulding  our  hearts 
and  understandings  to  itself.  And  when  at  last  we 
get  to  acknowledge  this  creative  word  in  its  essen- 
tially divine-human  quality,  nothing  will  be  easier 
to  us  than  to  see  that  this  divine-human  essence 
of  it  practically  depends  altogether  upon  its  strict 
naturality,  or,  to  use  a  phrase  of  Swedenborg,  its 
truth  in  iiltimates :  meaning  by  that  pregnant 
phrase  that  our  spiritual  creation  altogether  con- 
sists in  the  creator  spiritually  incarnating  himself 
in  our  worthless  nature  and  livingly  identifying 
himself  with  its  absurd  phantasmagoria  of  mineral, 
vegetable,  and  animal  existence ;  and  that  without 
this  stupendous  incarnation  therefore,  or  living  in- 
carceration, on  the  creator's  part,  we  should  none 
of  us  have  ever  had  a  chance  either  of  universal 
redemption  or  of  particular  salvation  out  of  our 
own  natural  and  most  idiotic  selves, 

I  think  we  are  fairly  entitled  now,  from  all  that 
has  gone  before,  to  conclude  that  our  natural  his- 
tory is  the  only  means  offered  us  of  ever  recog- 
nizing the  creative  omnipotence.  We  have  no 
conception  of  power  at  all  but  as  the  overcoming 
of  resistance.     And  when   things    resist  our  will, 


SOLE  MEDIUM  OF  INFINITUDE    TO    US.        249 

accordingly,  we  rate  our  own  power  as  great  or 
small  by  our  ability  or  inability  to  overcome  the  ob- 
stacles they  present  to  us.  Now  we  of  course  are 
never  called  upon  to  exercise  our  power  in  over- 
coming nature  (for  all  our  particular  power  comes 
to  us  from  God  througJi  our  natitre),  but  only 
in  overcoming  certain  specific  things  of  nature 
in  which  her  subordination  to  us  is  still  incom- 
plete. But  by  the  hypothesis  of  spiritual  creation, 
the  only  resistance  which  it  encounters  is  that  of 
the  creature's  nature — there  being  no  ability  in  the 
creature  himself  to  resist  the  divine  will  but  what 
he  derives  from  his  nature.  For  example :  man's 
nature  as  a  creature  (having  no  life  in  himself)  is 
plainly  not  to  be  and  not  even  to  exist,  but  only  and 
at  most  to  appear  to  himself  to  be  and  to  exist. 
Thus  his  nature  involves  a  profound  fallacy,  and 
he  can  never  realize  spiritual  being  at  God's  hands 
accordingly,  save  in  being  delivered  from  its  bond- 
age. Surely  no  fallacy  is  so  profound  and  fun- 
damental as  that  which  leads  a  creature  to  suppose 
himself  his  own  being  and  his  own  existence,  when 
the  bare  fact  of  his  creation  makes  him  void  in 
himself  of  everything  but  the  appearance  of  these 
things.  Here,  for  instance,  is  a  young  man  who  the 
other  day  fell  violently  in  love  with  a  young  woman, 
and  all  the  world  could  n't  persuade  him  against 
the   inspiration  of  his   nature  that  his  very  being 


250  NATURE  A    VERITABLE  LUSUS  DEI. 

and  existence  did  n't  lie  in  the  absolute  possession 
of  her.  My  reader  and  I,  however,  know  from  long 
experience  and  observation  in  this  behalf  that  his 
persuasion  is  not  half  so  likely  to  reflect  the  real 
as  the  apparent  truth  of  things ;  and  that  this  in- 
fatuated young  man,  accordingly,  if  he  only  obtain 
possession  of  the  lady,  will  erelong  discover  that 
his  being  and  existence  are  elsewhere.  Unques- 
tionably, however,  spiritual  creation,  in  involving  the 
verification  of  the  creature's  nature,  does  subject 
him  to  these  hideous  fallacies  on  every  hand ;  so 
that  the  creative  power  in  giving  the  creature  being 
would  find  itself  thoroughly  baffled  by  the  natural 
obduracy  of  its  creature  unless  it  were  really  om- 
nipotent, or  thoroughly  qualified  to  redeem  him 
from  his  nature,  and  give  him  most  real  and  ever- 
lasting life  in  place  of  it. 

Now  this  qualification  of  the  creator  (spiritually 
centred  in  his  redemptive  power  over  the  creature) 
is  precisely  what  we  call  his  infinitude  or  omnipo- 
tence ;  enabling  him  first  of  all  to  constitute  the 
creature  naturally  (that  is,  in  the  interest  of  his  ut- 
most conceivable  spiritual  oppugnancy  to  God),  in 
order  that  he  may  afterwards  make  this  natural  op- 
pugnancy of  the  creature  to  himself  the  sure  pledge 
and  guarantee  of  the  creature's  immortal  life. 

Thus  nature  on  the  whole  is  a  mere  hisiis  dei,  or 
pleasant  condescension  of  God,  in  reference  to  our 


NATURE  A    VERITABLE  LUSUS  DEI.  25  I 

appalling  spiritual  poverty.  It  may  be  called,  in 
fact,  a  pure  superstition  of  our  infatuated  ignorance 
and  incapacity  in  all  true  divine  knowledge.  For 
example ;  we  do  not  and  cannot  know  God  di- 
rectly, that  is  naturally,  because  to  know  him  is  to 
lead  a  life  in  heartfelt  harmony  with  his  perfec- 
tion ;  and  what  heartfelt  harmony  can  exist  be- 
tween us  and  God  so  long  as  our  nature  is  still 
undeveloped,  and  we  remain  bound  meanwhile 
to  conceive  ourselves  to  be  of  an  entirely  other 
nature  than  his?  It  is  of  course  dismally  absurd 
to  expect  a  mere  creature  of  creative  power  ever 
to  feel  itself  in  hearty  agreement  with  its  creator 
so  long  as  the  relation  endures  unbroken.  The  re* 
lation  indeed  is  meant  to  be  broken.  It  is  totally 
inapposite  to  the  creature's  needs,  considered  as  a 
final  relation ;  for  it  leaves  the  creature  a  spiritual 
sot  or  idiot,  inasmuch  as  it  makes  no  provision  for 
the  development  of  his  selfliood,  or  subjective 
identity.  The  relation  of  creature  and  creator  be- 
tween man  and  God,  considered  as  a  permanent 
one,  is  a  flagrant  denial  of  God's  spiritual  human- 
ity, which  incessantly  tends  to  equalize  creature 
with  creator ;  and  a  fortiori  therefore  it  defeats  the 
truth  of  God's  naticral  humanity,  which  shows  his 
highest  glory  to  lie  in  his  spiritually  vivifying 
the  created  nature,  and  making  man's  lowest 
lusts    eventually  to   praise   him.      And    it   is   even 


252  AN  INVERSE  FORM  OF  GOD. 

more  dismally  absurd  —  if  that  be  possible  —  to 
suppose  that  so  long  as  the  creative  or  absolute 
conception  of  the  relation  between  God  and  man 
endures,  or  refuses  to  merge  in  the  natural  rela- 
tion of  parent  to  child,  we  shall  ever  come  to 
know  God  as  he  craves  to  be  known,  that  is,  spirit- 
ually or  livingly. 

But  though  we  cannot  know  God  inwardly  or  by 
direct  knowledge,  we  may  yet,  in  a  certain  fashion 
of  accommodation  on  his  part,  come  to  know  him 
outwardly  or  by  indirect  reflected  knowledge,  provi- 
ded only  that  he  himself  be  good  enough,  and  wise 
enough,  and  powerful  enough  to  vivify  our  nature, 
and  make  that  a  true  vehicle  to  us  of  i-^^-knowl- 
edge.  For  the  knowledge  of  oneself  that  one  gets 
by  nature  is  nothing  else  than  an  inverted  or  indi- 
rect knoivlcdge  of  God;  and  the  person,  accordingly, 
who  best  knows  how  to  take  the  conceit  out  of  this 
natural  knowledge  by  frankly  confessing  himself 
evil  or  a  sinner,  has  a  knowledge  of  God  profound 
enough  to  qualify  him  spiritually  for  immortal  life. 
For  the  only  life  which  even  divine  omnipotence 
has  spiritually  to  bestow  upon  man  its  creature  is 
plainly  an  immortal  life  in  cordial,  unaffected  sym- 
pathy with  its  OAvn  perfection ;  and  as  plainly  im- 
mortal life  cannot  literally  avouch  or  express  itself 
within  our  purely  negative  experience,  save  in  the 
lineaments    of  a    mortal    natural    life    pretending 


THIS  FORM  FITS  IT  TO  REVEAL   HIM.         253 

to  be  our  own  true  life,  and  yet  showing  itself  ut- 
terly faithless  to  us  whenever  we  are  foolish  enough 
to  trust  it.  Thus  even  if  our  signal  incompe- 
tency to  know  God  directly,  and  find  immortal 
life  in  the  knowledge,  be  undeniable,  he  can  yet 
supply  us  with  a  qtiasi,  supposititious,  or  seeming 
life,  which,  because  based  upon  our  fundamental 
natural  instinct  (which  is  that  of  selfhood),  shall 
be  unmistakably  our  own  life,  and  shall  afford  us 
at  all  events  a  sure  and  ample  knowledge  of  what 
we  ourselves  are  by  nature  or  uncreation :  and  so 
finally  suggest  (unless  it  be  sacerdotally  tampered 
with  and  falsified)  a  pregnant  hope  and  expecta- 
tion in  our  bosoms  of  what  we  may  one  day  be- 
come at  his  own  omnipotent  and  perfectly  unselfish 
redemptive  hands.  This  qtiasi  natural  life  of  ours, 
in  short,  in  giving  us  a  knowledge  of  our  own  mor- 
tality will  also  furnish  us  by  contrast  with  an  in- 
fallible revelation  of  the  creative  name  or  quality. 
And  this  revelation,  growing  ever  more  and  more 
luminous  in  the  light  of  the  ages,  will  yet  prove 
divinely  sufficient  to  disperse  and  consume  what- 
ever low-minded  fears  and  shallow,  besotted  preju- 
dices  we  may  have  indulged  towards  him. 


CHAPTER  VII. 

THE  ROAD    WE  ARE    TRAVELLING. 

I  THINK  we  may  now,  at  length,  fairly  appre- 
hend the  road  we  are  travelling.  At  all  events 
we  clearly  see  thus  much  —  that  nature  is  necessa- 
rily implied  in  man,  although  we  may  not  as  yet, 
perhaps,  discern  the  infinite  or  creative  love  and 
wisdom  which  that  implication  stands  for.  There 
is  no  danger,  however,  that  we  shall  fail  to  discern 
these  things  in  the  end,  for  this  is  what  spiritual 
creation  amounts  to,  namely:  tJie  actual  viarriage 
coviiminion  of  creator  and  creature  —  a  marriage 
which  would  be  wholly  impossible  on  the  latter's 
part,  had  he  not  been  endowed  by  God's  spiritual 
incarnation  in  his  nature  with  that  natural  projec- 
tion from  his  creator,  or  that  fallacious  self-con- 
sciousness, under  which  we  all  of  us  more  or  less 
still  groan  and  suffer  the  torments  of  hell.  But 
at  present  we  must  content  ourselves  with  doing 
justice  to  the  incidental  topic,  and  endeavor  to 
understand  the  necessary  involution  of  nature  in 
man.        • 


NATURE  SOLE  BASIS  OF  CONSCIOUS  LIFE.     255 

I  have  made  it  seem  abundantly  clear,  to  my  own 
mind  at  least,  that  the  creative  power  in  man  must, 
in  spite  of  its  alleged  omnipotence,  have  proved 
perfectly  worthless  or  nugatory,  unless  it  had  found 
itself  first  of  all  practically  able  to  endow  its  crea- 
ture with  selfhood,  or  quasi  freedom.  Now  this 
selfhood  or  quasi  freedom  in  man,  owning  as  it 
does  a  strictly  natural  maternity,  proves  that  na- 
ture is  necessarily  involved  in  spiritual  creation. 
The  creature  is  absolutely  void  of  life  in  himself, 
or  real  life;  so  essentially  void  of  it,  that  even  if 
almighty  power  had  ever  tried  to  endow  him  with 
it,  it  must  have  ignominiously  failed.  But  although 
it  is  impossible  even  for  almighty  power  to  give  its 
creature  life  in  himself  (that  is,  real  life)  I  have 
shown  that  it  may  succeed  in  endowing  him  with 
natural  or  phenomenal  life,  provided  it  is  first  of 
all  able  spiritually  to  incarnate  itself  in  his  nature, 
and  so  let  his  nature  bear  all  the  expense  of  his 
reality.  In  that  case  the  creature  will  feel  that 
though  his  life  is  not,  and  cannot  be,  in  himself  as 
individually  viewed,  it  is  yet  none  the  less  in  him- 
self as  universally  viewed.  For  it  is  undeniable 
that  man's  consciousness,  under  the  light  and  truth 
of  the  incarnation,  is  made  to  start  from  the  most 
exiguous  individual  dimensions  possible,  and  yet 
before  it  has  done  growing  to  show  a  capacity  of 
attaining  to  an  indefinite  or  boundless  universality. 


2^6  PROVES  A   PRACTICAL   REVELATION  OF  COD. 

Besides,  if  the  creator  is  thus  able  spiritually  to 
quicken  the  creature's  nature,  then  undoubtedly  the 
creature's  nature  will  not  only  turn  out  a  basis  of 
phenomenal  subjectivity  to  him,  which  is  compara- 
tively unimportant,  but  will  also  constitute  in  the 
progress  of  its  historic  evolution  a  veritable  focus  of 
trustworthy  divine  knowledge  to  him,  which  may 
have  the  happiest  effect  in  conciliating  and  modi- 
fying his  intellectual  prejudices.  Thus  his  nature, 
divinely  verified,  will  not  only  furnish  him  with  a 
seeming  or  fallacious  life  to  supply  the  place  of 
that  which  he  lacks  in  himself,  but  it  will  also  fur- 
nish his  nascent  intelligence  with  a  sort  of  negative 
measure  of  the  divine  being — a  sort  of  inverse 
revelation  of  creative  life  —  and  so  in  time  effectu- 
ally quicken  his  aspirations  after  real  or  living  spir- 
itual knowledge. 

Nature  itself,  as  literally  viewed,  is  of  course  of 
no  account  as  furnishing  a  divine  revelation.  For 
nature  itself,  literally  viewed,  is  merely  the  inward 
or  essential  quality  of  the  creature  reproduced  and 
represented  to  him  in  outward  or  sensible  symbols ; 
and  to  suppose  such  a  literally  dead  thing  as  this 
lisping  a  true  word  of  authentic  divine  revelationj, 
would  be  excessively  childish.  No,  it  is  only  na- 
ture as  spiritually  or  livingly  viewed,  that  is,  as 
verified  by  what  we  call  history  —  meaning  by  that 
the  public,  universal,  unconscious,  creative  force 


DOUBLE  ASPECT  OF  THE  NATURE.         257 

in  humanity  —  that  ever  claims  to  be  apocalyptic 
with  regard  to  God,  and  is  alone  fit  to  be  accepted 
as  a  veritable  symbol  of  spiritual  knowledge.  But 
if  this  be  true,  then  nature  will  be  found  to  present 
herself  to  us  in  a  double  aspect  —  one  outward  or 
apparent,  addressed  to  our  senses ;  the  other  real 
or  inward,  addressed  to  our  regenerate  heart  and 
understanding.  Her  first  aspect  is  masculine  and 
perishable,  being  that  which  she  puts  on  in  Adam, 
the  simply  natural  man  tinder  law  to  God,  because 
he  is  made  the  dust  of  the  ground.  Her  second  as- 
pect is  feminine  and  imperishable,  being  that  which 
she  puts  on  in  Eve,  or  woman,  who  is  not  simply 
natural  like  Adam,  but  divinely-Vi-aXnx'sX,  because 
she,  unlike  him,  is  built  up  not  of  earthly  dust,  but 
of  the  purest  and  most  deathless  human  affection. 
Adam,  we  are  told  in  the  Hebrew  Genesis,  was 
formed  or  made  by  God  "  dust  of  the  ground^' 
than  which  we  can  conceive  nothing  on  earth  more 
vicious  and  irritating.  And  being  thus  inhumanly 
formed,  the  breath  of  life  —  God's  inward  or  spirit- 
ual life,  mind  you  —  is  outwardly  breathed  into  his 
nostrils,  so  that  he  becomes  at  best  a  human  animal. 
*'  And  the  lord  God  took  the  man  "  thus  mechani- 
cally extemporized,  "  and  put  him  into  the  garden 
of  Eden,  to  dress  and  keep  it;  and  he  commanded 
the  man  saying,  Of  every  tree  of  the  garden  thou 
mayest  freely  eat  except  the  tree  of  finite  knowl- 
17 


258  NATURE  IMBECILE    WITHOUT  SELFHOOD. 

edge,  called  the  knowledge  of  good  and  evil :  for 
the  day  thou  eatest  of  that  tree  thou  shalt  infalli- 
bly die.  And  the  lord  God  said,  It  is  not  good  for 
the  man  to  be  alone,"  —  he  is  so  imbecile  and  un- 
intelligent; "  I  will  make  him  a  suitable  or  enliv- 
ening help-meet.  And  out  of  the  ground  "  —  the 
ground  of  which  Adam  was  the  dust —  "  the  lord 
God  formed  every  beast  of  the  field  and  every 
fowl  of  the  air,  and  brought  them  in  review  before 
Adam  to  see  how  he  would  appreciate  them,  and 
according  to  his  appreciation,  such  was  their  qual- 
ity," —  for  they  were  all  of  them  mere  visible  types 
of  his  own  nature.  So  Adam  gave  name  or  quality 
to  all  lower  existences  than  himself,  but  he  found  no 
fitting  mate  for  himself  among  them.  "And  the  lord 
God"  —  still  intent  upon  giving  him  such  a  mate 
— "  caused  a  deep  sleep  to  fall  upon  Adam,  and 
while  he  was  unconscious  took  from  him  a  rib,"  — 
which  apparently  was  the  nearest  approximation 
he  possessed  to  a  heart,  —  "  and  of  this  bony  sub- 
stance built  up  a  woman,  and  brought  her  to  the 
man  who  said.  This  is  now  bone  of  my  bones  and 
flesh  of  my  flesh  ;  she  shall  be  called  woman  (Isha), 
because  she  is  taken  out  of  man  (Ish).  There- 
fore shall  a  man  leave  his  father  and  his  mother, 
and  shall  cleave  unto  his  wife,  and  they  shall  be 
one  flesh." 

I  remember  that  dear  old  Dr.  Miller  used  to  say 


ROOTED  IN  MAN  IT  FLOWERS  IN  WOMAN.     259 

to  his  pupils  in  ecclesiastical  history:  "Young 
gentlemen,  we  are  bound  to  conceive  David  to 
have  been  a  good  man  on  the  strength  of  his  being 
called  a  man  after  God's  own  heart.  But  the  least 
we  can  say  hereupon  is  that  he  was  a  strange  good 
man  !  "  I  think,  however,  that  we  have  much  more 
reason  to  say,  that  if  the  Adam  of  Genesis  is  to  be 
taken  as  a  specimen  of  what  almighty  power  can 
effect  in  human  nature,  then  we  are  bound  to  con- 
sider him  a  very  strange  or  inadequate  specimen. 
For  evidently  there  is  no  touch  of  nature  or  self- 
moved  existence  about  him.  He  has  neither  heart 
nor  understanding  but  what  is  divinely  furnished 
him  in  Eve,  or  woman  ;  so  that  we  are  perfectly  jus- 
tified in  supposing  that  human  nature  dates  from 
her,  while  only  the  human  person,  in  all  its  intrinsic 
vanity  and  emptiness  as  the  product  of  the  nature, 
stands  identified  with  him.  In  short,  the  simple 
and  obvious  fact  on  the  face  of  the  narrative  is, 
that  this  dust-made  Adam  was  nothing  but  a  divine 
rudiment  or  preparation  for  the  natural  man,  char- 
acterized as  yet  not  by  the  possession  of  selfhood, 
but  only  by  a  dumb  and  blind  yearning  after  it. 
He  was  prepared  to  sacrifice  everything  he  knew 
to  it,  and  cleave  to  it  as  to  his  true  life  for  good 
and  evil.  But  he  had,  as  yet,  no  misgiving  of  the 
revolution  marriage  would  effect  in  his  outward 
paradise,  by  awakening  his  heart  or  vivifying  his 


2.60      WOMAN-  THE  HEART  OF  OUR  NATURE. 

inward  afifections.  Indeed,  his  relation  to  his  bride 
was  still  so  brutally  innocent  or  inhuman  that  he 
had  not  even  wit  enough  to  see  that  they  were  both 
naked,  nor  consequently  to  blush  at  the  discovery, 
as  any  one  more  advanced  in  conventional  man- 
hood, or  the  distinction  between  good  and  evil, 
would  doubtless  have  done.  In  short,  he  is  nothing 
so  far  hit  the  incarnate  lust  of  selfhood,  which  self- 
hood he  yet  never  realizes  in  his  own  proper  form, 
but  only  in  that  of  woman  divinely  inspired ;  be- 
cause he,  loving  her  as  himself,  would  still  appar- 
ently or  consciously  love  another  than  himself,  and 
so  preserve  some  natural  imagery  or  correspond- 
ence of  the  creative  love ;  while  woman  herself — 
devoting  herself  to  him  exclusively  as  his  faithful 
drudge,  and  serving  him  utterly  without  a  thought 
of  intellectual  rivalry,  or,  indeed,  any  conception  of 
personal  independence  —  will  be  sure  eventually  to 
shape  and  train  his  carnal  savage  instincts  into  a 
qjiasi  love  and  acknowledgment  of  God  in  her.  It 
will  be,  I  repeat,  but  a  quasi  love  after  all ;  but  a 
quasi  love  is  the  only  love  befitting  an  unreal  or 
merely  conscious  person.  Eve  accordingly  is  not 
slow  to  accept  the  interior  guidance  and  guardian- 
ship of  her  uncouth  mate ;  and,  what  is  more  to  the 
purpose,  she  has  miraculously  kept  that  guidance 
and  guardianship  unimpaired  (through  all  the 
vicissitudes  of  death  and  hell  which  his  own  nature 


THE  HEART  AS  AN  ORGANIC  SYMBOL.      26 1 

and  history  have  since  so  freely  showered  upon 
his  experience),  by  first  of  all  assiduously  nursing 
him  out  of  the  mere  brutal  physical  consciousness 
he  was  in  when  she  met  him,  into  a  moral  and  ra- 
tional consciousness,  —  and  then  convincing  him 
that  even  this  moral  and  rational  consciousness  of 
his  to  which  she  has  brought  him,  is  itself  after  all 
but  a  dim  fallacious  semblance  of  the  spiritual,  or 
infinite  and  eternal,  manhood  which  she  has  yet  to 
reveal  to  him. 

We  all  of  us  know  how  incomparable  the  function 
of  the  heart  is  in  the  animal  organization,  finding 
its  own  life  simply  in  giving  life  to  all  the  other 
organs.  It  never  asks  anything  for  itself  alone,  but 
instantly  turns  it  over  to  the  use  of  the  dependent 
organization.  Its  energy  is  so  miraculous  to  our 
eyes  that  it  never  claims  a  moment's  rest,  day  or 
night,  during  all  these  years  of  dismal  servitude  to 
our  organic  life,  and  it  is  so  ineffably  modest  that 
it  is  no  matter  how  inordinately  the  greedier  or 
more  selfish  organs  pull  upon  its  resources,  it  has 
never  the  least  complaint  to  make  of  their  exac- 
tions. Now  the  heart  only  symbolizes  woman's 
virtually  commanding  attitude  towards  man  in  the 
conjugal  relation.  It  is  indeed  a  perfect  symbol  of 
her  supreme  yet  thankless  worth  in  the  evolution 
of  man's  spiritual  destiny.  This  destiny  depends  of 
course  upon  a  divine  authentication  of  his  nature, 


262       MAJV'S  NATURE  XO    WAY  ABSOLUTE. 

because  his  nature  is  what  alone  identifies  him  to 
his  own  consciousness.  But  his  nature  is  no  way 
absolute.  It  is  not  an  existing  or  objective  thing. 
It  does  not  exist  out  of  consciousness,  and  is  there- 
fore purely  subjective,  symbolizing  or  standing  for 
its  subject's  spiritual  ignorance  and  incompetency 
in  divine  things.  It  is  not  the  nature  of  any  pri- 
vate or  particular  man  (though  every  such  man 
claims  it),  but  only  of  the  public  or  universal  man. 
Now  how  shall  this  nature  of  man  out  of  private 
become  public,  out  of  particular  become  universal, 
out  of  subjective  become  objective,  out  o^  personal 
in  fact  become  wholly  impersonal  and  indefinite, 
save  through  the  marvellous  mediation  of  woman  as 
the  wife,  who,  patiently  submitting  herself  to  man's 
lordly,  implacable,  lascivious  will  (as  if  it  were  her 
only  recognized  law  in  life),  has  gradually  out  of 
such  submission  built  up  the  family,  the  tribe,  the 
city,  the  nation,  and  every  larger  or  more  universal 
form  of  human  unity,  until  now  at  last  her  helpless 
nursling  has  become  developed  into  THE  PEOPLE, 
and  only  awaits  its  own  coming  into  social  or  divine- 
natural  _/<7r;«,  in  order  to  see  what  it  has  always  stu- 
pidly recognized  as  nature  become  spiritually  glori- 
fied into  almighty  God.  It  is  the  constant  recogni- 
tion of  this  divine  worth  in  woman  that  makes  man 
love,  adore,  and  worship  her  with  all  his  heart  and 
mind.    Not  the  conscious  individual  woman,  or  the 


WOMAN'S  DIVINE    WORTH.  263 

conventional  fine  lady,  mind  you  —  save  in  so  far  as 
these  aspire  to  forget  themselves,  and  become  sin- 
cerely one  or  identical  with  unconscious  or  univer- 
sal womanhood.  In  that  case,  of  course,  every 
woman  —  no  matter,  to  begin  with,  if  she  is  even 
as  handsome  as  Cleopatra  —  will  be  sure  to  inspire 
in  man  a  love  of  the  sex  so  infinitely  chaste,  as  in- 
stantly to  interpret  itself  into  the  supreme  and  au- 
thentic bliss  of  true  or  eternal  marriage. 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

A    CONSCIENCE   OF  SIN. 

I  AM  sincerely  sorry  that  my  habit  is  so  invet- 
erate to  wander  from  the  point  I  am  discus- 
sing. I  think,  however,  that  I  am  not  entirely 
without  excuse  just  now,  inasmuch  as  my  very  sub- 
ject by  its  fundamental  breadth,  or  depth  and  com- 
prehensiveness, invites  and  even  necessitates  more 
or  less  indulgence  of  the  habit.  At  the  opening  of 
my  last  chapter  I  asseverated,  for  the  hundredth 
time  I  doubt  not,  that  nature  is  a  middle  term  be- 
tween man  and  God,  or  finite  and  infinite,  addressed 
to  making  us  conscious  of  all  the  evil  embraced  in 
the  lower  nature,  and  all  the  good  embraced  in  the 
higher.  I  say  distinctly,  all  the  evil  embraced  in 
the  lower  nature,  and  all  the  good  embraced  in  the 
higher  nature.  For  in  himself ,  or  personally,  man 
is  just  as  little  evil  as  God  is.  And  God  in  himself, 
or  personally,  is  just  as  little  good  as  man  is.  For 
spiritually,  or  really,  both  God  and  man  are  alike 
destitute  of  selfhood  or  personality,  God  having 
absolutely  no  subjective  existence  but  in  man  his 


ATTACHES  ONLY  TO  MAN.  26$ 

creature,  simply  because  man  has  absolutely  no 
objective  being  but  in  God  his  creator.  They  find 
their  life,  in  other  words,  not  at  ail  in  themselves, 
but  wholly  in  their  spiritual  relation  to  each  other ; 
this  relation  being  infinitely  good  in  the  one  case, 
because  it  is  purely  creative  or  cosmical ;  and  in- 
definitely evil  in  the  other,  because  it  is  simply  and 
obdurately  personal  or  selfish,  leading  to  interne- 
cine discord,  strife,  and  violence. 

Remember,  then,  as  stoutly  as  you  please,  that 
the  only  evil  under  the  sun  is  undefined  or  univer- 
sal evil.  That  is  to  say,  it  pertains  to  no  person 
and  no  thing  in  particular,  but  only  to  the  nature 
or  essential  quality  of  persons  and  things,  because 
persons  and  things  alone  have  the  presumption  to 
be  the  arrest  or  finite  determinatio7i  of  existence. 
Of  course  the  evil  that  pertains  to  things  is  entirely 
unconscious,  and  therefore  may  be  left  out  of  the 
account  altogether,  as  having  no  spiritual  truth. 
The  only  spiritual  evil  in  fact  is  that  which  attaches 
to  man,  and  is  known  under  the  distinctive  name  of 
sin,  because  it  is  the  only  evil  which  belongs  to  a 
conscious  or  personal  subject,  that  is,  one  who  feels 
his  life  to  be  /«  himself.  This  alone  is  the  funda- 
mental evil  of  created  life,  that  it  is  by  nature  in- 
veterately  y^^-conscious,  and  therefore  spiritually 
hostile  or  limitary  to  the  almighty,  which  neces- 
sarily gives  its  evil  a  spiritual  character;   that  is, 


266  SIN  IS  EVIL   APPROPRIATED. 

fills  its  subject  out  with  an  intimate  conscience  of 
sin  or  j-^^condemnation.  We  may  say  according- 
ly that  the  sole  and  total  function  of  evil  in  the  di- 
vine administration  —  especially  under  its  spiritual 
aspect  —  has  been  subtly  to  undermine  and  de- 
stroy this  finite  consciousness  in  men,  and  dispose 
them  instead  to  the  spiritual  acknowledgment  of 
almighty  God.  The  spiritual  recognition  of  the 
almighty  is  of  course  impossible  so  long  as  one 
believes  in  himself,  or  feels  that  his  life  inheres  in 
himself.  Such  a  man  cannot  possibly  feel  any  true 
peace  or  repose  in  the  divine  name,  although  we 
occasionally  hear  of  some  scrub  Episcopalian,  or 
Presbyterian,  or  Methodist  parson  boldly  pretend- 
ing to  be  familiar  with  it ;  for  the  poor  creature  is 
always  logically  bound  to  drag  his  own  unsavory 
corpse  about  with  him,  which  obligation  steadily 
restricts  him  to  believing  that  the  name  of  the  al- 
mighty is  only  to  be  found  hallowed  outside  of  his 
own  special  spiritual  precinct  or  parish. 

But  if  evil  be  a  strictly  universal  quantity,  and 
therefore  innocent  as  attaching  to  no  special  thing 
or  person,  how  is  the  creative  design  in  man  prac- 
tically furthered  by  allowing  it  to  become  individ- 
ualized in  him,  and  so  converted  into  sin?  My  old 
friend  Mr.  Emerson  used  to  kick  very  much  at 
this,  and  conceived  a  great  dislike  to  Swedenborg's 
doctrine  of  spiritual    regeneration  as  based  upon 


SWEDENBORG  AND  EMERSON.  267 

the  acknowledgment  of  evil  as  sin.  He  was  never 
tired  of  protesting  his  conviction  that  the  acknowl- 
edgment of  evil  as  evil  was  greatly  to  be  preferred. 
I  used  always  to  tell  him  that  this  judgment  on  his 
part  arose  from  the  signally  different  estimate 
Swedenborg  and  he  framed  of  creation  —  Sweden- 
borg  regarding  it  as  a  living  or  spiritual  thing,  he 
as  an  exclusively  natural  or  dead  thing;  Sweden- 
borg, in  fact,  regarding  nature  as  nothing  in  itself,  he 
on  the  contrary  looking  upon  it  as  comparatively 
everything  in  itself.  "  You  are  both  very  remarka- 
ble seers,  no  doubt;  yet  I  cannot  but  think  that  he 
has  the  advantage  in  being  a  spiritual  seer,  while  you 
remain  a  natural  one."  In  fact,  this  was  my  friend's 
inveterate  limitation  in  philosophy,  that  he  never 
raised  his  eyes  above  the  basement  story  of  crea- 
tion, but  was  content  to  remain  an  obdurate  natur- 
alist till  the  end  of  his  intellectual  days.  The 
feebleness  of  the  naturalist  point  of  view  inheres  in 
this,  that  nature  falls  entirely  within  consciousness 
and  does  not  directly  connect  with  God  therefore. 
It  connects  with  him  only  as  the  appanage  of  man 
his  creature  ;  that  is,  only  as  he  is  creatively  acknowl- 
edged under  the  name  of  the  lord  or  God-man, 
giving  his  creature  no  mere  piddling  and  pedantic 
natural  life,  but  literally  his  own  spiritual  life  which 
is  infinite  and  eternal.  And  Mr,  Emerson  had  no 
spiritual  insight  into  creative  order,  because  he  had 


268  THE   ONE   A    SPIRITUALIST, 

no  adequate  doctrine  of  consciousness.  He  re- 
garded the  judgments  of  consciousness  as  final,  and 
would  as  soon  have  jumped  into  the  Merrimac  as 
seriously  have  supposed  that  the  divine  kingdom  on 
earth  was  vastly  more  indebted  for  its  furtherance  to 
sinners  than  to  saints.  He  took  a  downright  literal 
view  of  the  reality  of  men's  moral  differences,  and 
I  have  even  heard  him  tell  with  infinite  gusto  of 
some  virtuous  youth  in  college  with  him,  who  had 
such  a  gross  faculty  of  moral  effusion  as  actu- 
ally to  suppress  all  naughty  conversation  among 
his  companions  by  his  bare  presence  —  which 
made  me  wonder  what  a  pitch  of  spiritual  idiocy 
this  moral  peacock,  if  left  to  himself,  would  be  sure 
eventually  to  attain  to.  Only  we  are  none  of  us 
left  to  ourselves,  nor  can  be,  fortunately. 

But  gossip  about  Mr.  Emerson  is  no  answer  to 
my  question,  which  ran  thus  :  How  does  it  promote 
the  welfare  of  the  divine  kingdom  on  earth,  to 
allow  serious-minded  men  to  feel  all  their  days  a 
conscience  of  sin,  —  that  is,  a  sense  of  poignant 
j^^-condemnation  and  self-abhorrence  towards 
God?  The  entire  intellectual  pith  and  the  exqui- 
site virulence  of  "  a  conscience  of  sin "  consists 
in  its  being  a  sentiment  of  .y^^-condemnation 
towards  God,  who  is  traditionally  held  to  be  the 
outside  and  voluntary  author  of  human  life.  It 
usually  pivots  upon  some  moral  obliquity  on  the 


THE   OTHER  A   LITERALIST.  269 

creature's  part,  such  as  false-witness,  fraud,  adul- 
tery or  murder ;  but  it  is  no  way  moral  in  its  origin, 
boasting  a  much  deeper  root.  It  seems  to  hav^e  a 
moral  origin  only  because  the  creature  as  yet  ap- 
prehends himself  as  altogether  outwardly  or  phy- 
sically constituted,  and  has  not  the  least  idea  of 
himself  as  being  spiritually  created.  If  he  had 
ever  looked  upon  himself  in  this  latter  point  of 
view,  he  would  have  infallibly  acknowledged  God's 
spiritual  omnipotence ;  and  if  he  had  once  acknowl- 
edged God's  spiritual  omnipotence,  he  would  never 
have  looked  upon  his  physical  constitution  as  at- 
taching to  himself,  but  only  to  God  in  him.  It 
would  in  fact  never  again  come  into  his  mind.  For 
a  man  can  never  be  spiritually  tempted  to  think 
of  himself  as  any  way  important  to  his  own  life, 
except  while  he  is  spiritually  ignorant  of  God's 
creative  omnipotence.  The  higher  conception 
practically  exhausts  the  lower  one ;  and  the  lower, 
in  its  turn,  fatally  obscures  the  higher  one. 

But  I  will  try  to  give  a  satisfactory  answer  to 
my  question. 

God's  kingdom  among  men  consists,  in  the  first 
place,  in  a  sincere  intellectual  conviction  on  their 
part  that  he  is  essentially  omnipotent  or  almighty. 

And  yet,  in  the  second  place,  this  conviction  is 
so  flagrantly  incompatible  with  another  profound 
conviction  which  men  entertain  —  namely,  that  of 


270  THE  ILLUSION  OF  SELFHOOD. 

their  natural  dignity  —  that  it  is  plain  the  establish- 
ment of  the  divine  kingdom  on  earth  will  only  take 
^.place  in  so  far  as  men  can  be  induced  practically 
to  give  over  esteeming  their  natural  selfhood  so 
highly,  and  consent  to  count  it  thenceforth  as  il- 
lusory. 

Men  habitually  live  under  the  illusion  that  their 
natural  selfhood  is  something  divinely  sacred,  and 
no  illusion  is  more  profoundly  inveterate  in  the 
long  run  than  this.  It  seems  bred,  for  example, 
in  the  marrow  of  my  bones  that  God  will  be  angry 
with  me  if  I  show  any  voluntary  or  even  chance 
disrespect  to  this  selfliood  in  others.  And  I  feel 
equally  sure  of  his  lively  approbation  whenever  I 
force  myself  to  forego  any  habitually  selfish  exac- 
tion on  my  own  part  towards  my  fellows.  Thus 
on  its  literal  side  the  moral  law  seems  expressly 
adapted  to  foster  this  illusion ;  and  obviously  all 
the  conquests  of  civilization  have  been  spiritually 
engineered  or  energized  by  it.  And  yet  to  my 
own  mind  it  is  an  illusion  so  deep  and  deadly  that 
I  am  free  to  say  it  explains,  better  than  anything  I 
know,  the  almost  despairing  chances  which  men 
feel  of  the  advent  of  God's  spiritual  kingdom  in 
our  nature. 

Of  course  I  have  no  idea  that  almighty  God  has 
the  least  complaint  to  make  of  men  on  the  score  of 
their  practical  morality.     All  I  mean  to  allege  is 


tVJ/V  IS  DUTY  ALWAYS   VOLUNTARY?       2J\ 

that  their  practical  morality  presents  a  very  absurd 
basis  for  their  living  intercourse  with  God,  since  it 
is  always  spiritually  enforced  by  the  sentiment  of 
duty  or  legal  obedience,  which,  though  on  its  face  a 
denial  of  self,  is  yet  at  bottom  a  particularly  vigor- 
ous assertion  of  it.  For  why  is  duty  never  done 
freely  or  spontaneously?  Why  is  it  always  done 
voluntarily  or  from  self-compulsion?  It  is  because 
in  doing  our  duty  to  God  or  our  fellow-men  we 
feel  ourselv^es  to  be  secretly  inimical  to  them,  and 
hope  that  in  this  onerous  ritual  way  our  confessed 
enmity  may  at  length  be  forgiven  by  them.  Thus 
the  morally  good  man  —  the  man  who  owns  no 
higher  sentiment  than  duty,  or  legal  obedience  — 
was  unsparingly  characterized  in  olden  time  by 
one  who  apparently  knew  him  through  and  through, 
as  a  whited  sepulchre,  outwardly  fair  to  inejt's  sight, 
but  iiiwardly  filled  with  dead  men's  bones  and  all 
corruption.  This  judgment,  doubtless,  will  avouch 
itself  true  till  the  end  of  the  world.  For  surely  no 
man  need  voluntarily  compel  himself  to  goodness, 
unless  his  secret  heart  be  at  enmity  with  it.  And 
what  sort  of  a  basis  is  supplied  for  spiritual  or  liv- 
ing intercourse  between  God  and  man  by  a  state 
of  things  which  leaves  the  heart,  or  true  selfhood, 
out,  and  limits  itself  to  placating  man's  mere  outer 
and  prudential  self?  Obviously  no  sort  at  all. 
God  almighty  is  the  most  humble  or  lowly  being 


272  THE  MYSTERY  OF  SELFHOOD. 

conceivable,  utterly  destitute  of  conscious  life  or 
selfhood,  and  having  absolutely  no  acquaintance 
with  it,  save  in  the  person  of  his  worthless  creature 
man.  How  man  comes  to  have  something  which 
his  maker  has  not  —  m.mQ\y,  natural  selfhood — is 
explained  by  the  fact  that  selfliood  expresses  man's 
nature,  or  essential  quality,  as  created,  giving  him 
identity  to  his  own  consciousness,  and  so  forever 
separating  him  from  God.  If  he  had  it  not,  the 
creature  would  be  undistinguishable  from  his  crea- 
tor; so  that  God's  spiritual  creation  is  absolutely 
conditioned  upon  it.  Selfhood  is  not,  of  course, 
the  morally  evil  thing  in  the  divine  estimation 
which  it  is  in  ours,  because  it  has  no  moral  exist- 
ence to  him  to  begin  with,  being  a  sheer  hallucina- 
tion of  our  native  pride  and  arrogance.  Neither 
can  it  be  considered  a  spiritually  evil  thing  in  the 
divine  sight,  save  when  indulged  to  excess,  or  bar- 
ring out  the  inflow  of  his  own  tender  pity  and 
mercy  to  man.  For,  as  I  have  just  said,  God  is 
man's  most  humble  servant,  seeking  incessantly 
to  build  him  up  spiritually  by  allaying  his  natural 
pride  of  character  and  lust  of  dominion.  And  the 
only  way  he  has  to  effect  this  end,  is  by  patiently 
undergoing  death  in  the  created  nature,  in  order  to 
allow  himself  to  rise  again  from  that  death  in  man's 
new  or  redeemed  nature.  For  example :  when  I 
voluntarily  abandon  myself  to  my  naturally  selfish 


WITHOUT  IT,  NO   CONSCIENCE   OF  SIN.      2^2, 

tendencies,  God  spiritually  dies  in  me,  and  under- 
goes resuscitation  only  in  so  far  as  I  can  be  brought 
to  feel  a  conscience  of  sin  towards  him,  or  acknowl- 
edge myself  to  be  totally  unworthy  of  his  goodness. 
The  gravamen  of  the  spiritual  experience  called 
conscience,  is  that  I  feel  wjj/i-^^livingly  implicated 
in  the  evils  I  do,  and  no  longer  attempt  to  slur  them 
over  as  mere  casual  and  natural  evil  deeds.  Of 
course  God  is  not  distressed  at  any  man's  natural 
evils,  any  more  than  he  is  distressed  at  the  rise  and 
fall  of  the  tides  ;  for  a  man's  natural  evils  are  purely 
subjective,  qualifying  him  to  his  own  consciousness, 
not  at  all  to  the  divine  sight.  But  he  is  distressed 
at  a  conceited  goose  of  a  man  pretending  to  be  a 
recipient  of  life,  and  yet  habitually  acting  as  if  his 
nature  were  his  highest  or  only  law.  And  he  takes 
very  good  care  accordingly  to  wither  up  what 
every  such  man  regards  as  his  vitals,  by  making 
him  willing  to  give  his  nature  the  go-by,  and  see 
Jiiniself  henceforth  as  a  sinner,  actually  dependent 
for  life  upon  the  divine  mercy. 

Undoubtedly  it  would  be  a  great  mistake  to  infer 
that  I  mean,  when  I  say  that  the  creator  dies  in  us, 
to  allege  that  his  death  is  any  way  like  ours,  in- 
volving his  natural  selfhood  or  subjectivity.  For 
God  has  no  natural  selfliood  or  subjectivity  save  in 
his  creature  man.  His  being  is  purely  objective, 
consisting  in  the  delight  he  has  in  communicating 

i8 


274    CREATION  A    COMMUNICATION  OF  LIFE. 

life  to  Others.  I  use  this  word  deliberately.  For  the 
life  he  gives  to  others  is  his  own  life,  not  theirs  — 
he  being  willing  to  enjoy  it  in  common  with  them. 
He  first  of  all  creates  them,  or  gives  them  being,  by 
spiritually  abandoning  himself  to  them.  And  then 
inasmuch  as  the  effect  of  this  generosity  is  only  to 
infiame  their  nature,  and  endow  them  with  a  fal- 
lacious selfhood,  or  subjectivity,  he  subsequently 
redeems  them  from  the  dominion  of  their  nature, 
and  then  at  last  saves  them  (with  what  they  cannot 
help  feeling  to  be  an  eternal  salvation)  by  bring- 
ing them  into  social  or  unitary  form  and  order. 
The  death  he  undergoes  is  vastly  more  real,  conse- 
quently, than  the  trivial  thing  known  to  us  by  that 
name.  It  is  a  death  to  the  intimate  and  infinite 
delight  he  has  in  imparting  life  to  others  —  his  own 
life ;  and  it  compels  him  therefore  to  fashion  an  un- 
real or  phenomenal  life  for  them  out  of  their  nature 
which  may  bring  them  into  apparent  harmony  with 
himself  But  the  harmony  is  only  apparent  after 
all,  and  must  therefore,  as  it  seems  to  me,  subject 
those  who  are  satisfied  with  it  to  grave  though 
unconscious  spiritual  limitation.  However,  this  is 
neither  here  nor  there  with  reference  to  our  pre- 
sent discussion,  and  we  may  safely  leave  it  as  it 
stands. 


CHAPTER  IX. 

THE   OFFICE   OF  MIRACLE. 

OUPPOSE  now,  that,  after  what  has  gone  before, 
we  answered  the  question  I  have  proposed 
somewhat  in  manner  following :  — 

The  interests  of  the  divine  kingdom  on  earth 
will  be  best  promoted  by  men  looking  upon  them- 
selves as  acutely  implicated  in  their  natural  evils, 
ajid  confessing  tJicmselvcs  sinners  tJierefore  before 
God ;  because  God  (inasmuch  as  he  is  a  strictly 
objective  being,  having  absolutely  no  subjectivity 
but  in  his  creatures)  is  literally  obliged  to  depend 
upon  men's  free  or  unforced  activity  for  everything 
he  wants  done  on  earth,  especially  for  those  things 
which  manifest  his  spirit. 

How  would  this  please  my  reader?  I  confess  it 
seems  to  me  not  at  all  amiss  as  a  satisfactory  solu- 
tion to  our  question. 

The  reason  why  I  say  that  God  is  without  self- 
hood (having  no  subjectivity  save  in  us  his  crea- 
tures) is  of  course  that  he  is  spiritually  incarnate 
in  our  nature.     He  has,  so  to  speak,  no  nature  of 


2/6     A   MEMORIAL   OF  GOD'S  OMNIPOTENCE. 

his  own,  being  perfectly  identified  with  ours.  In 
order  that  God  should  claim  to  be  nature  as  well  as 
spirit,  it  would  be  necessary  that  there  should  be 
many  gods  —  at  least  more  than  one  —  both  alike, 
or  all  alike,  claiming  equality  with  each  other ;  for 
nature  always  means  what  is  common  to  particulars. 
But  this  would  .be  absurd,  because  God  is  one  or 
infinite,  giving  spiritual  being  to  all  existence.  His 
contact  with  nature  accordingly  is  only  through  us, 
which  makes  it  eternally  impossible  that  he  should 
ever  appear  in  nature,  or  make  himself  visible  to 
men,  save  in  some  representative  form.  Miracle  fur- 
nishes the  chief  attestation  of  the  divine  presence  in 
nature.  In  sacred  Scripture  it  stands  as  a  perpetual 
reminder  and  corrective  of  the  ecclesiastical  untruth 
that  the  world  of  nature  is  the  realm  of  creation,  or 
can  ever  be  dragooned  into  confessing  herself  so. 
It  is  a  standing  protest  of  the  intellect  against  mix- 
ing up  or  confounding  such  incongruous  things  as 
the  life  of  nature  and  spiritual  or  divinely  created 
Hfe.  The  order  of  nature  going  from  mineral  to  veg- 
etable, vegetable  to  animal,  and  animal  to  man,  is 
and  will  always  remain  perfectly  reputable,  because 
it  is  the  very  order  of  human  thought  while  as  yet 
in  its  first  dewy  innocency  —  the  innocency  of  ignor- 
ance—  and  accepts  without  scruple  therefore  the 
traditional  dogma  of  creation.  But  as  man  grows 
riper  and  richer  in  the  experience  of  life,  he  learns 


NATURE   UNFIT  TO  BE  MAN'S  HOME.       277 

to  reason  about  this  traditional  dogma,  and  hesi- 
tates any  longer  to  accept  it,  save  in  so  far  as  it 
becomes  spiritually  qualified  to  his  apprehension, 
or  claims  to  be  preternaturally  sanctioned.  His 
rising  spiritual  instinct  of  the  divine  name  necessi- 
tates this  scrupulosity  on  his  part.  For  his  grow- 
ing consciousness  or  self-knowledge  teaches  him 
reverentially  to  separate  God  from  himself,  or  assign 
him  infinite  and  ineffable  qualities  —  qualities  at 
least  wholly  unlike  those  belonging  to  finite  nature, 
and  which  eternally  forbid  his  taking  pleasure  in  it. 
Nature  is  merely  a  picture  or  image  —  livingly  or 
spiritually  addressed  by  God  to  man's  intelligence  — 
of  his  own  nascent  spiritual  thought,  which  always 
proceeds  in  its  efforts  to  find  an  adequate  creative 
source  by  a  strict  method  of  elimination;  that  is, 
by  gradually  living  down,  or  rejecting  one  thing 
after  another,  mineral,  vegetable,  and  animal,  which 
it  at  first  thinks  vital  to  itself,  and  then  at  last  by 
living  down,  or  rejecting  its  own  very  self —  when 
for  the  first  time  it  spiritually  finds  God,  or  feels 
itself  truly  created,  that  is,  admitted  to  God's  eter- 
nal sonship.  Nature  accordingly  can  never  be  or 
become  to  man  his  spiritual  habitat — that  is,  the 
true  home  of  his  soul  —  because  it  never  discloses 
the  living  or  infinite  God  to  him,  but  only  God  in- 
carnate and  incarcerate  in  his  own  nature.  The 
moment  nature  attempts  to  babble  of  spiritual  or 


278  EMANCIPATES   THE  MIND  FROM  NATURE. 

infinite  things,  she  either  stops  at  once  appalled  at 
her  own  temerity,  or  else  falls  into  a  mere  idiotic 
stutter,  like  that  of  our  blatant  Joseph  Cook,  Par- 
son Moody,  or  any  other  of  the  noisy  imps  whose 
providential  mission  seems  to  be  to  make  the  pulpit 
forever  odious  and  disgusting  to  cultivated  men. 
The  only  thing  that  still  reconciles  the  devout  world 
to  the  pulpit  is  that  it  disposes  men  to  slumber ;  and 
nothing  could  be  less  conducive  to  the  permanence 
of  the  institution  than  this  senile  affectation  on  its 
part  to  be  galvanic  and  lively. 

Miracle,  then,  is  the  standing  symbol  to  men's 
intellect  of  their  spiritual  creation,  or  their  having 
a  being  in  God  transcending  the  laws  of  time  and 
space,  and  noway  complicated  with  the  puny  order 
of  nature,  or  her  stifling  ritual  of  cause  and  effect. 
Its  purpose  has  always  been  in  truth  to  keep  the 
intellect  free  of  nature's  palsying  routine,  and  make 
men  disdain  to  measure  themselves  spiritually  by 
her  trite  and  superficial  order,  which  in  fact  is 
merely  the  order  (faintly  imaged)  of  their  own  im- 
mortal emancipation  from  natural  trammels.  All 
praise  therefore  to  Mr.  Darwin,  Mr.  Huxley,  and 
other  scientifically  qualified  persons,  for  telling  us 
that  they  discover  no  trace  of  creative  power  in 
nature ;  that  the  truth  of  such  power,  accordingly, 
must  be  sought  elsewhere  than  in  her  common- 
place trivial   precincts,  which  are   of  no   use   any 


SCIENCE  JUSTIFIES  MIRACLE.  279 

longer  but  to  furnish  material  for  tedious  scientific 
class-books,  or  to  inspire  misty,  sentimental  poets 
with  an  elaborately  feeble  and  yet  pretentious  twit- 
tering. For  these  scientific  men  have  thoroughly 
displaced  the  church  in  men's  estimation.  They  are 
ministering  to  what  is  now  men's  highest  or  divine- 
natural  life  —  just  as  the  church  itself  when  it  was 
a  living  thing  in  the  earth,  and  not  as  now  a  mere 
dead  mummery  existing  only  in  its  own  profession, 
ministered  to  men's  spiritual  life.  For  as  formerly 
the  church  represented  the  gospel  of  God's  love  to 
man,  or  proclaimed  God's  deathless  mercy  to  the 
chief  of  sinners  —  that  is,  even  to  the  most  saintly 
specimens  of  human  kind,  and  so  freed  men's  con- 
science of  subjection  to  law  either  human  or  divine 
—  exactly  so  science,  literally  representing  God's 
natural  humanity,  still  further  authenticates  the 
spiritual  divine  mercy  to  men.  For,  chasing  the 
divine  power  out  of  nature  quite  as  remorselessly 
or  reverently  as  miracle  ever  ventured  to  do,  it  vir- 
tually limits  his  abode  henceforth  to  the  soul  and 
mind  of  man,  and  teaches  man  in  his  researches 
after  deity  to  look  no  longer  outward  but  inward, 
and  find  the  only  God  adapted  to  his  worship  in 
every  tie  of  natural  affection  and  every  thought  of 
natural  respect  that  freely  binds  him  in  holiness 
and  sweetness  to  his  fellow-man. 

The  only  thing  about  which  one  is  ever  disposed 


280     MEN  OF  SCIENCE  SPIRITUALLY  DULL. 

to  quarrel  with  men  of  science,  is  their  insane  as- 
piration to  make  nature  account  for  itself  to  the 
intellect.  They  look  upon  the  world  of  space  and 
time,  or  nature  and  history,  as  possessing  a  grim 
objective  reality  of  its  own,  in  strict  independence 
of  its  relation  to  the  human  mind ;  and  they  flatter 
themselves  that  if  they  could  once  get  hold  of  this 
reality  all  doubt  and  debate  about  things  would 
cease.  But  this  world  has  no  such  outward  and 
objective  reality  of  its  own,  or  apart  from  a  human 
subject.  Its  only  reality  lies  in  its  faithfully  sym- 
bolizing, or  picturing  to  men's  intelligence,  spiritual 
or  living  realities  which  are  infinite  and  eternal  in 
the  heavens.  It  is  absurd,  therefore,  for  any  one  to 
pretend  understanding  nature  and  history  who  does 
not  approach  them  from  some  previous  doctrinal 
standpoint  such  as  the  church  embodied  in  pre- 
scientific  ages.  The  church  has  always  dogmati- 
cally affirmed  the  superiority  of  man  to  nature, 
although  church  members  in  their  individual  capa- 
city have  not  been  eager  practically  to  maintain 
the  doctrine.  The  church,  however,  has  always 
indefatigably  maintained  this  by  teaching  man  to 
consider  himself  God's  trne  creatnir,  and  to  regard 
■mineral,  vegetable,  and  animal  merely  as  providen- 
tially involved  in  his  existence.  Its  doctrine  of  cre- 
ation to  be  sure  has  been  unspeakably  childish  and 
absurd  to  the  intellect,  but  it  has  always  kept  men 


THEIR  FUNDAMENTAL  ERROR.  28 1 

in  memory  of  the  word  at  least.  It  has  never  min- 
istered to  them  the  spiritual  comfort  which  is  in 
the  word,  because  it  was  itself  wholly  ignorant  of 
that  comfort,  looking  upon  creation  as  a  mere  v^ol- 
untary  or  outward  act  of  God  by  which  he  multi- 
plied men's  bodies  indefinitely.  Of  course  this  is  not 
creation,  but  a  disgusting  caricature  of  it.  Never- 
theless the  church  kept  this  ridiculous  letter  of  the 
truth  before  men's  eyes  until  such  time  as  the  spir- 
itual conception  of  it  was  ready  to  dawn  upon  the 
intellect. 

Certainly  it  is  no  wonder  that  scientific  men  hav- 
ing only  the  ecclesiastical  view  of  creation,  reject  it 
altogether.  No  man  whose  intellect  is  not  bound 
in  the  base  fetters  of  tradition  can  tolerate  it  a 
moment;  for  it  reduces  God  to  the  level  of  an 
inventor,  and  makes  his  activity  that  of  a  fussy 
and  contemptible  artist  at  best.  But  it  is  all  the 
difference  between  a  dead  and  living  intellect,  that 
the  one  limits  itself  to  rejecting  falsity  while  the 
other  aspires  also  to  acknowledge  the  spiritual 
truth  which  has  been  so  long  buried  under  that 
falsity.  Hence  it  is  that  scientific  men  regard 
science  as  the  final  achievement  of  the  human 
mind,  and  not  its  bare  initiament ;  and  look  upon 
every  advance  they  make  in  scientific  doctrine, 
accordingly,  as  an  advance  towards  the  true, 
and   not  towards   the  simply  probable.      No  one 


282      THEIR  FUNDAMENTAL   ERROR. 

can  doubt  that  Mr.  Huxley  or  Mr.  Haeckel  be- 
lieves in  Evolution  as  a  something  objectively 
wrought  in  nature,  and  not  as  a  mere  subjective 
product  of  the  mind  seeking  unconsciously  to 
formulate  a  doctrine  of  nature  in  strict  correspon- 
dence with  man  spiritually  regarded.  But  there  is 
no  such  thing  possible  in  nature  as  absolute  objec- 
tivity. Nature  is  objective  only  with  respect  to 
man,  whose  finite  or  infirm  intelligence  alone  sub- 
jectively qualifies  it,  or  calls  it  his.  And  to  con- 
sider it  absolutely  objective,  as  the  man  of  science 
must  necessarily  do  when  he  seeks  to  collect  philo- 
sophic doctrine  from  it,  or  to  make  it  explain  its 
own  secrets,  is  even  riotously  absurd.  Nature  in  fact 
is  nothing  but  a  symbol  of  universal  man,  and  its 
entire  symbolic  purport  to  his  intellect  will  have 
been  wrought  out  as  soon  as  he  learns  this  tremen- 
dous lesson  from  it  —  namely,  to  regard  human 
life  as  primarily  7iniversal,  and  only  secondarily  and 
subordinately/^r/z'^/Zi^r  or  private. 

Mr.  Huxley  may  perhaps  object  that  he  thinks 
evolution  took  place  only  as  nature  takes  place; 
for  nature  is  evolution.  But  this  is  precisely  what 
I  complain  of,  that  nature  should  be  thought  ever 
to  have  "  takeji  place."  I  do  not  see  how  any  man 
who  reverences  the  intellect  can  suppose  that  there 
ever  was  a  space  where  nature  was  not,  or  a  time 
when  she  was  not.     And  if  there  never  was  a  space 


NATURE  NEVER  "TOOK  PLACE."  283 

wiiere  nature  was  not,  nor  a  time  when  she  was  not, 
it  is  palpably  absurd  to  say  that  nature  ever  "  took 
place."  She  furnishes  our  whole  and  sole  idea  of 
"  taking  place,"  and  without  her  to  begin  with  we 
should  never  have  had  the  dimmest  perception  of 
space  and  time,  for  the  all-sufficient  reason  that  no 
such  tilings  could  have  ever  appeared  to  exist.  She 
is  the  sole  embodiment  of  our  ideas  of  space  and 
time,  adapting  herself  to  our  finite  necessities  as 
the  mother  alone  can,  and  helping  us  to  feel  and  to 
think  as  if  she  were  the  whole  substance  of  our 
phenomenal  or  conscious  freedom,  as  she  veritably 
is  indeed.  To  use  a  word  of  Swedenborg,  nature 
is  the  ultimate  of  creative  order ;  and  this  word  will 
be  best  explained  by  citing  his  idea  of  creation, 
which  is  vastly  more  prolific  intellectually  than 
the  merely  naturalistic  idea  of  it  now  so  universal 
among  churchmen  and  church-bred  sceptics.  "  By 
"  creation,"  he  says,  "is  meant  what  is  divine  from 
"within  to  without,  or  from  first  to  last;  for  every- 
"  thing  divinely  created  begins  in  God,  and  pro- 
"  ceeds  in  an  orderly  way  even  to  the  ultimate  issue ; 
"  thus,  through  the  heavens  into  the  world,  and 
"  there  rests  as  in  its  ultimate.  For  tl^e  ultimate 
"  of  divine  order  is  /;/  the  nature  of  the  world." 

No  churchman  assuredly  would  say  that  to  be 
created  implies  being  divine  from  beginning  to 
end,  or  from  first  to  last.     Not  he,  indeed !     The 


284    NATURE   ULTIMA TES  CREATIVE   ORDER. 

one  idea  of  churchmen  is,  that  to  be  created  im- 
pHes  to  be  undivine  from  stem  to  stern ;  and  they 
have  no  more  idea  of  a  creative  order  in  things, 
miraculously  economizing  them  or  leaving  none  of 
them  out,  than  an  Australasian  savage  would  have 
of  the  architectonic  order  that  blazes  away  in  the 
Dom  church  of  Cologne.  Well,  what  does  Swe- 
denborg  mean  by  the  ultimate  of  creative  order, 
and  by  cosmical  nature  constituting  it?  He  means 
something  sufficiently  simple,  depend  upon  it;  per- 
haps too  simple  for  the  gross,  exaggerated  tastes 
of  the  day.  He  means  that  thing  in  creative  order 
which  provides  for  the  creature's  identity  against 
the  interest  even  of  his  God-given  individuality. 
For  inasmuch  as  the  creator  gives  exclusive  being 
to  the  creature,  the  creature  would  be  spiritually 
swallowed  up  in  the  creator  unless  the  latter  should 
consent  to  exist  or  go  forth  in  the  created  nature, 
and  so  endow  the  creature  with  natural  identity. 
This  natural  identity  of  the  creature,  which  consti- 
tutes him  to  his  own  consciousness,  and  gives  him 
body,  is  his  indefeasible  propriuni,  and  is  included 
in  creation  as  its  ultimate ;  that  is,  as  the  thing  on 
which  the  spiritual  creation  is  altogether  condi- 
tioned. Here  accordingly  in  the  very  heart  of  crea- 
tion is  secured  the  fullest  conceivable  provision  for 
the  creature's  identity.  Let  the  creature  be  good 
or  evil  then  just  as  he  pleases,  neither  his  good  nor 


NO  EXISTENCE   OF  THE  SUPERNATURAL.   2S5 

his  evil  will  ever  serve  to  characterize  him  spiritu- 
ally, but  only,  and  at  most,  naturally ;  his  good  at 
the  best  (simply,  I  suppose,  because  it  is  his)  hav- 
ing no  power  to  lay  hold  upon  the  divine  good,  or  to 
ally  him  with  the  infinite ;  and  his  evil  at  the  worst 
being  powerless  to  separate  him  (except  subjec- 
tively) from  God,  while  objectively  it  furnishes  a 
most  overpowering  argument  for  the  divine  com- 
passion towards  him. 

I  have  not  forgotten  to  elucidate  (rationally)  the 
answer  to  my  question  with  which  this  chapter 
opens.  In  fact  I  have  only  been  preparing  to  elu- 
cidate it,  in  this  preliminary  statement  which  I  have 
sought  to  give  of  the  office  of  miracle.  For  if  the 
office  of  miracle  in  sacred  writ  be  to  represent  the 
divine  presence  and  power  in  our  nature,  it  cer- 
tainly represents  it  as  dealing  with  the  nature  in  a 
thoroughly  masterful  way,  as  if  the  nature  were  its 
own  primarily,  and  only  secondarily  or  subordi- 
nately  ours.  Miracle  is  usually  characterized  as  a 
display  of  super-natural  power,  whereas  in  truth  it  is 
strictly  a  display  of  divine  power  within  the  nature 
—  thus  of  what  Swedenborg  calls  divine-natural 
power.  Correctly  speaking  there  is  no  such  thing 
as  supernatural  power,  because  there  is  practically 
no  such  thing  as  supernatural  existence.  The  di- 
vine being  is  essentially  creative :  that  is  to  say, 
God  by  the  necessity  of  his  own  perfection  imparts 


286      COD  EXISTS  ONLY  IN  HUMAN  NATURE. 

life  to  all  his  creatures.  But  if  so,  he  is  obliged 
first  of  all  to  reduce  himself  subjectively  to  the 
creature's  natural  dimensions,  in  order  that  he  may 
afterwards  objectively  succeed  in  elevating  the  crea- 
ture to  himself — that  is,  to  his  own  spiritual  dxraen- 
sions.  For  the  creature,  inasmuch  as  he  is  created, 
has  and  can  have  no  being  in  himself.  He  is  and 
exists  only  naturally  —  that  is,  by  virtue  of  what  he 
has  in  common  with  his  fellows.  It  is  this  natural 
community  which  the  creature  is  under  as  created, 
that  constitutes  his  essential  limitation ;  in  other 
words,  it  is  that  solely  which  gives  him  identity, 
and  so  separates  him  to  his  own  consciousness 
from  the  creator.  Thus  the  creature  has  at  best  in 
himself  only  a  quasi  or  seeming  reality.  His  re- 
ality is  wholly  in  his  relations  to  his  fellows ;  that 
is,  in  his  nature^  which  is  only  a  mask  of  creative 
power. 

But  we  must  understand  at  the  same  time  that 
the  creature  has  not  the  least  insight  into  his  own 
natural  limitations.  It  never  occurs  to  him  to  im- 
agine that  he  is  without  life  in  himself.  On  the 
contrary,  he  feels  himself  to  be  full  of  life.  He  is 
so  rich  in  sensation  alone,  that  he  would  laugh  at 
you  for  saying  that  sensation  was  not  life.  He  is 
sure  for  his  part  that  life  consists  in  sensation,  and 
that  to  augment  its  volume  or  realize  all  its  possible 
variety  is  fully  to  enjoy  life.     To  be  sure  this  per- 


HUMAN  NATURE  NOT  FINITE.  28/ 

suasion  of  his  is  all  nonsense ;  but  what  are  you 
going  to  do  about  it?  As  long  as  he  can  confide 
in  nature's  fixity,  he  remains  perfectly  established 
in  himself;  and  all  you  can  say  in  derogation  of  that 
habit  he  calls  metaphysics,  which  he  somehow  feels 
he  has  a  right  to  despise,  though  it  is  the  only  pos- 
sible ground  of  the  faint  little  trivialities  he  acknowl- 
edges as  constituting  himself  Your  only  chance, 
accordingly,  of  spiritually  helping  him  lies  in  your 
being  able  to  disturb  his  faith  in  the  fixity  of  nature. 
Do  this,  and  you  hopelessly  unsettle  his  belief  in 
himself,  for  he  himself  is  only  what  his  nature 
makes  him. 

Now  you  cannot  shake  a  man's  faith  in  the  fixity 
of  nature  except  by  showing  him  that  nature  is  un- 
created ;  that  is,  that  it  is  not  a  finite  thing  involved 
in  man's  finite  consciousness,  but  a  strictly  unde- 
fined or  universal  life  of  God  in  man.  I  call  it  a 
life  of  God  in  man  ;  but  spiritually  viewed  it  is  prac- 
tically a  death  of  God  in  man,  since  the  incarnation 
of  God's  infinitude  in  a  foreign  nature  must  be  spir- 
itually equivalent  to  death  in  himself  If  then  the 
nature  only  belongs  to  us  at  second  hand,  while  it 
really  belongs  at  first  hand  to  God  almighty  in  us, 
it  would  be  absurd  to  deem  it  absolutely  fixed.  It 
is  fixed  only  to  our  very  limited  sensible  observa- 
tion ;  but  it  is  wholly  unfixed  to  scientific  observa- 
tion, which  is  that  of  the  race.     Now  in  the  absence 


288  WHAT  Mil?  A  CLE  DOES  FOR   US. 

of  race  testimony  to  this  efifect  in  the  early  history 
of  humanity  (that  is,  in  the  destitution  of  all  intel- 
lectual power  on  man's  part  to  apprehend  the  truth 
upon  the  subject)  miracle  offers  itself  as  a  substi- 
tute or  stop-gap,  affirming  the  creator's  omnipo- 
tence in  nature.  This  is  what  miracle  does  for  us. 
It  teaches  us  to  acknowledge  an  almighty  power  in 
nature ;  and  if  there  be  an  almighty  power  in  na- 
ture, then  nature  is  not  finite  except  to  our  infirm 
apprehension  of  it.  And  if  nature  be  really  not 
finite  save  to  our  limited  observation,  then  the 
finiteness  which  it  apparently  confers  upon  us  dis- 
appears at  once,  and  we  have  no  available  refuge 
henceforth  for  our  unsheltered  heads  but  a  trem- 
bling faith  in  the  almighty  being  whom  it  an- 
nounces. 

Now  unquestionably  to  be  whisked  about  in  this 
miraculous  way  from  one's  conviction  of  his  natural 
finiteness  (and  from  all  the  security  it  is  felt  to  en- 
gender in  human  life),  and  to  feel  one's  self  hence- 
forth made  a  mere  contingency  of  God's  omnipo- 
tence in  nature,  does  somewhat  spiritualize  the 
mind,  but  in  a  very  direful  and  distressing  manner. 
That  is  to  say,  it  exposes  human  life  to  the  influx 
of  heaven  and  hell,  or  gives  it  for  the  first  time  its 
ability  to  recognize  the  existence  of  a  supersensu- 
ous  good  and  evil  in  humanity.  This  no  doubt  is 
much  to  do.     But  after  all  it  is  a  plainly  negative 


IT  DISPOSES   US   TO  BELIEVE  IN  GOD.      28g 

work,  unsettling  man's  natural  finiteness  indeed, 
but  in  no  wise  establishing  his  spiritual  infinitude 
or  perfection.  On  the  contrary,  as  by  the  hypoth- 
esis of  creation  there  are  but  two  beings  in  the  uni- 
verse—  creator  and  creature  —  good  and  evil  have 
got  to  be  distributed  between  these  two ;  which 
leaves  the  creature  no  choice  but  to  identify  him- 
self with  evil  spiritually,  in  identifying  God  alone 
with  spiritual  good.  And  the  identification  of  one's 
self  with  spiritual  evil,  or  sin,  must  be  a  purely  pro- 
visional effect  of  God's  indwelling  in  humanity 
never  intended  for  permanence,  or  even  to  endure 
long,  because  such  a  pronounced  contrast  between 
creator  and  creature  could  not  be  long  acknowl- 
edged among  men  without  tumbling  into  an  organ- 
ized hypocrisy,  like  that  which  at  present  prevails 
in  the  Roman  Catholic  and  Protestant  churches. 

Miracle  then,  in  spite  of  its  sensational  worth,  is 
a  mere  operation  of  God's  providence  in  human 
affairs,  disposing  men  to  the  recognition  of  his  om- 
nipotent name.  When  once  this  living  recognition 
takes  place — that  is,  when  men  cease  to  acknowledge 
it  with  the  traditional  memory  alone,  and  confess  it 
with  the  life  —  then  the  divine  kingdom  becomes 
established  on  the  earth,  and  men  no  longer  see  as 
now  two  divided  beings  in  the  universe,  creator 
and  creature,  but  the  creator  alone,  whose  omnipo- 
tence is  an  all-sufficient  guarantee  for  the  existence 

19 


290  AND    THIS  IS  ALL   IT  DOES. 

of  the  creature.     In  other  words,  nature  disappears 
as  a  necessity  of   the   divine  administration,  and 
God  is  all  in  all.     I  say  that  miracle  at  best  only 
disposes  men  to  the  acknowledgment  of  the  omnip- 
otent name.     At  best,  it  only  keeps  their  servile 
minds  from  being  swamped  in  their  senses,  by  de- 
monstrating the  existence  of  a  supersensuous  power 
in  nature.     But  it  convinces  no  one  of  this  magnifi- 
cent truth.     Neither  does  it  persuade  any  one  of 
it,  and  it  drops  erelong  into  a  mere  sectarian  shib- 
boleth, enforcing  new  degradations  upon  the  mind. 
Thus,  what  good  have  any  of  the  Christian  miracles 
ever  done   to  the  human   mind  save  in    arresting 
men's  thought  here  and  there,  and  disposing  it  to 
the  acknowledgment  of  a  divine-human  power  op- 
erative in  nature?     For  the  most  part  they  have 
not  done  thus  much  even.     So  far  from  disposing 
the  low-minded  men  among  us  who  most  devoutly 
cherish  the  Christian  tradition  to  acknowledge  the 
operation  of  a  ^\vm&-lmman  power  in  nature,  they 
make  them  utterly  indifferent  to  such  acknowledg- 
ment;  or,  if  anything,  dispose  them  to  disavow  and 
frown  upon  those  who  unfeignedly  make  it.     In 
fact,  the  acknowledgment  at  this  day  of  the  Chris- 
tian tradition  at  all  seems  wofully  out  of  place  save 
as  a  literal  index  and  confirmation  of  universal  or 
humanitary  truth.     It  is  the  one  thing  that  stands  in 
the  way  of  human  progress ;    for  they  who  make  it 


SYMPATHY  WITH  A   CONFESSION  OF  SIN.    29 1 

and  live  by  it  enjoy  all  the  wealth  of  the  world,  and 
it  is  needless  to  say  that  where  the  world's  wealth 
abides  there  also  will  abide  the  world's  material  — 
but  not  its  spiritual  —  power.  The  only  remedy  for 
this  state  of  things  to  those  who  have  none  of  the 
world's  wealth  or  power  or  science,  and  still  in 
heart  acknowledge  God's  natural  humanity,  is  to 
grow  in  the  faith  of  his  spiritual  omnipotence,  well 
knowing  that  the  world's  wealth  and  power  and  sci- 
ence are  all  a  monstrous  sham  or  false  appearance 
in  the  interest  of  the  creature's  natural  identity, 
and  are  of  no  account  whatever  in  determining  a 
man's  spiritual  individuality. 

Every  man  of  this  spiritual  make  will  be  sure  to 
sympathize  profoundly  with  the  confession  of  sin 
inculcated  upon  the  early  church.  For  though  he 
has  no  call  himself  to  repeat  or  reproduce  the  con- 
fession, he  has  no  manner  of  doubt  that  this  was 
the  only  way  in  which  a  living  acknowledgment  of 
God's  almightiness  could  then  be  effected.  It  is 
only  in  these  latter  days  —  that  is,  only  since  the 
last  judgment  described  by  Swedenborg  as  taking 
place  upon  the  church  in  the  spiritual  world  —  that 
men  are  beginning  to  rise  above  the  necessity  of 
those  formal  ritualities,  because  they  are  now  fully 
able  to  realize  with  the  intellect  the  great  truth  of 
God's  omnipotence,  the  greatest  and  most  benig- 
nant truth  man's  intellect  will  ever  be  summoned 


292  SYMPA  THY  WITH  A    CONFESSION  OF  SIN. 

to  know.  And  every  one  who  is  beginning  to  do 
this  however  faintly  feels  that  had  it  been  his  lot 
to  live  in  the  days  of  the  early  church,  he  could 
never  have  expressed  the  sincere  or  living  hom- 
age of  his  heart  towards  God  in  any  other  way 
than  by  making  a  confession  of  sin. 


CHAPTER  X. 


MR.  EMERSON. 


AT  all  events,  if  we  are  still  to  go  on  cherish- 
ing any  such  luxury  as  a  private  conscience 
towards  God,  I  greatly  prefer  for  my  own  part  that 
it  should  be  an  evil  conscience.  Conscience  was 
always  intended  as  a  rebuke  and  never  as  an  exhil- 
aration to  the  private  citizen ;  and  so  let  it  flourish 
till  the  end  of  our  wearisome  civilization.  There  are 
many  signs,  however,  that  this  end  is  near.  My 
recently  deceased  friend  Mr.  Emerson,  for  exam- 
ple, was  all  his  days  an  arch  traitor  to  our  existing 
civilized  regimen,  inasmuch  as  he  unconsciously 
managed  to  set  aside  its  fundamental  principle  in 
doing  without  conscience,  which  was  the  entire 
secret  of  his  very  exceptional  interest  to  men's 
speculation.  He  betrayed  it  to  be  sure  without 
being  at  all  aware  of  what  he  was  doing ;  but  this 
was  really  all  that  he  distinctively  did  to  my  obser- 
vation. His  nature  had  always  been  so  innocent, 
so  unaffectedly  innocent,  that  when  in  later  life  he 
began  to  cultivate  a  club  consciousness,  and  to  sip. 


294  ILLUSTRATES  GOD'S  NATURAL  HUMANITY. 

a  glass  of  wine  or  smoke  a  cigar,  I  felt  very  much 
outraged  by  it.  I  felt  very  much  as  if  some  re- 
nowned Boston  belle  had  suddenly  collapsed  and 
undertaken  to  sell  newspapers  at  a  street  corner. 
"Why,  Emerson,  is  this  j/ou  doing  such  things?" 
I  exclaimed.  "  What  profanation !  Do  throw 
the  unclean  things  behind  your  back!"  But,  no; 
he  was  actually  proud  of  his  accomplishments ! 
This  came  from  his  never  knowing  (intellectually) 
what  he  stood  for  in  the  evolution  of  New  Eng- 
land life.  He  was  lineally  descended  to  begin  with, 
from  a  half-score  of  comatose  New  England  clergy- 
men, in  whose  behalf  probably  the  religious  instinct 
had  been  used  up.  Or,  what  to  their  experience  had 
been  religion,  became  in  that  of  their  descendant 
/t/e.  The  actual  truth,  at  any  rate,  was  that  he  never 
felt  a  movement  of  the  life  of  conscience  from  the 
day  of  his  birth  till  that  of  his  death.  I  could  never 
see  any  signs  of  such  a  life  in  him.  I  remember,  to 
be  sure,  that  he  had  a  great  gift  of  friendship,  and 
that  he  was  very  plucky  in  behalf  of  his  friends  when- 
ever they  felt  themselves  assailed  —  as  plucky  as  a 
woman.  For  instance,  whenever  Wendell  Phillips 
ventilated  his  not  untimely  wit  at  the  expense  of  our 
club-house  politicians,  Emerson,  hearing  his  friends 
among  these  latter  complain,  grew  indignant,  and 
for  several  days  you  would  hear  nothing  from  his 
lips  but  excessive  eulogies  of  Mr.  Garrison,  which 


A   SIiVLESS   CREATURE,  295 

sounded  like  nothing  else  in  the  world  but  revilings 
of  Mr.  Phillips.  But,  bless  your  heart !  there  was 
not  a  bit  of  conscience  in  a  bushel  of  such  experi- 
ences, but  only  wounded  friendship,  which  is  a 
totally  different  and  much  lower  thing. 

The  infallible  mark  of  conscience  is  that  it  is 
always  a  subjective  judgment  couched  in  some 
such  language  as  this :  "  God  be  merciful  to  me  a 
sinner !  "  and  never  an  objective  judgment  such  as 
this  :  God  damn  Wendell  Phillips,  or  some,  other  of 
my  friends !  This  latter  judgment  is  always  an 
outbreak  of  ungovernable  temper  on  our  part,  and 
was  never  known  to  reach  the  ear  of  God  save  in 
this  guise :  God  BLESS  W.  P.  or  aiiy  other  friend 
implicated !  Now  Emerson  was  seriously  incapable 
of  a  subjective  judgment  upon  himself;  he  did 
not  know  the  inward  difference  between  good  and 
evil,  so  far  as  he  was  himself  concerned.  No  doubt 
he  perfectly  comprehended  the  outward  or  moral 
difference  between  these  things ;  but  I  insist  up- 
on it  that  he  never  so  much  as  dreamed  of  any 
inward  or  spiritual  difference  between  them.  For 
this  difference  is  vitally  seen  only  when  oneself  seems 
unchangeably  evil  to  his  own  sight,  and  one's  neigh- 
bor unchangeably  good  in  the  comparison.  How 
could  Emerson  ever  have  known  this  difference? 
I  am  satisfied  that  he  never  in  his  life  had  felt  a 
temptation  to  bear  false-witness  against  his  neigh- 


296     COULD    GIVE  NO  ACCOUNT  OF  HIMSELF. 

bor,  to  steal,  to  commit  adultery,  or  to  murder ;  how 
then  should  he  have  ever  experienced  what  is  tech- 
nically called  a  conviction  of  sin?  —  that  is,  a  con- 
viction of  himself  as  evil  before  God,  and  all  other 
men  as  good.  One  gets  a  conviction  of  the  evil  that 
attaches  to  the  natural  selfhood  in  man  in  no  other 
way  than  —  as  I  can  myself  attest  —  by  this  grow- 
ing acquaintance  with  his  own  moral  infirmity,  and 
the  consequent  gradual  decline  of  his  self-respect. 
For  I  myself  had  known  all  these  temptations  — 
in  forms  of  course  more  or  less  modified  —  by  the 
time  I  was  fourteen  or  fifteen  years  old ;  so  that 
by  the  time  I  had  got  to  be  twenty-five  or  thirty 
(which  was  the  date  of  my  first  acquaintance  with 
Emerson)  I  was  saturated  with  a  sense  of  spiritual 
evil  —  no  man  ever  more  so  possibly,  since  I  felt 
thoroughly  j^^-condemned  before  God.  Good 
heavens  !  how  soothed  and  comforted  I  was  by  the 
innocent  lovely  look  of  my  new  acquaintance,  by  his 
tender  courtesy,  his  generous  laudatory  appreciation 
of  my  crude  literary  ventures  !  and  how  I  used  to  lock 
myself  up  with  him  in  his  bed-room,  swearing  that 
before  the  door  was  opened  I  would  arrive  at  the  se- 
cret of  his  immense  superiority  to  the  common  herd 
of  literary  men  !  I  might  just  as  well  have  locked 
myself  up  with  a  handful  of  diamonds,  so  far  as  any 
capacity  of  self-cognizance  existed  in  him.  I  found 
in  fact,  before  I  had  been  with  him  a  week,  that 


HE    WAS  CONTENT  SIMPLY   TO  LIVE.       297 

the  immense  superiority  I  ascribed  to  him  was  al- 
together personal  or  practical  —  by  no  means  intel- 
lectual ;  that  it  came  to  him  by  birth  or  genius  like 
a  woman's  beauty  or  charm  of  manners ;  that  no 
other  account  was  to  be  given  of  it  in  truth  than 
that  Emerson  himself  was  an  unsexed  woman,  a 
veritable  fruit  of  almighty  power  in  the  sphere  of 
our  nature. 

This  after  a  while  grew  to  be  a  great  discovery 
to  me ;  but  I  was  always  more  or  less  provoked  to 
think  that  Emerson  himself  should  take  no  intel- 
lectual stock  in  it.  On  the  whole  I  may  say  that  at 
first  I  was  greatly  disappointed  in  him,  because  his 
intellect  never  kept  the  promise  which  his  lovely 
face  and  manners  held  out  to  me.  He  was  to  my 
senses  a  literal  divine  presence  in  the  house  with 
me ;  and  we  cannot  recognize  literal  divine  pres- 
ences in  our  houses  without  feeling  sure  that  they 
will  be  able  to  say  something  of  critical  importance 
to  one's  intellect.  It  turned  out  that  any  average 
old  dame  in  a  horse-car  would  have  satisfied  my 
intellectual  rapacity  just  as  well  as  Emerson.  My 
standing  intellectual  embarrassment  for  years  had 
been  to  get  at  the  bottom  of  the  difference  between 
law  and  gospel  in  humanity  —  between  the  head 
and  the  heart  of  things  —  between  the  great  God 
almighty,  in  short,  and  the  intensely  wooden  and 
ridiculous  gods  of  the  nations.      Emerson,  I  dis- 


298    MILDL  Y  LA  UGHED  A  T  THE  NE  W  BIR  TH. 

covered  immediately,  had  never  been  the  least  of 
an  expert  in  this  sort  of  knowledge ;  and  though 
his  immense  personal  fascination  always  kept  up, 
he  at  once  lost  all  intellectual  prestige  to  my  regard. 
I  even  thought  that  I  had  never  seen  a  man  more 
profoundly  devoid  of  spiritual  understanding,  'This 
prejudice  grew,  of  course,  out  of  my  having  inher- 
ited an  altogether  narrow  ecclesiastical  notion  of 
what  spiritual  understanding  was,  I  supposed  it 
consisted  unmistakably  in  some  doctrinal  lore  con- 
cerning man's  regeneration,  to  which,  however,  my 
new  friend  was  plainly  and  signally  incompetent. 
Emerson,  in  fact,  derided  this  doctrine,  smiling  be- 
nignly whenever  it  was  mentioned.  I  could  make 
neither  head  nor  tail  of  him  according  to  men's 
ordinary  standards  —  the  only  thing  that  I  was 
sure  of  being  that  he,  like  Christ,  was  somehow  di- 
vinely begotten.  He  seemed  to  me  unmistakably 
virgin-born  whenever  I  looked  at  him,  and  reminded 
me  of  nothing  so  much  as  of  those  persons  dear  to 
Christ's  heart  who  should  come  after  him  profes- 
sing no  allegiance  to  him  —  having  never  heard 
his  name  pronounced,  and  yet  perfectly  fulfilling 
his  will.  He  never  seemed  for  a  moment  to  antag- 
onize the  church  of  his  own  consent,  but  only  out 
of  condescension  to  his  interlocutor's  weakness. 
In  fact  he  was  to  all  appearance  entirely  ignorant 
of  the  church's  existence  until  you  recalled  it  to  his 


HE  HAD  NO   CONSCIENCE.  299 

imagination ;  and  even  then  I  never  knew  anything 
so  implacably  and  uniformly  mild  as  his  judgments 
of  it  were.  He  had  apparently  lived  all  his  life  in  a 
world  where  it  was  only  subterraneously  known ; 
and,  try  as  you  would,  you  could  never  persuade  him 
that  any  the  least  living  power  attached  to  it.  The 
same  profound  incredulity  characterized  him  in  re- 
gard to  the  State ;  and  it  was  only  in  his  enfeebled 
later  years  that  he  ever  lent  himself  to  the  idea  of 
society  as  its  destined  divine  form.  I  am  not  sure 
indeed  that  the  lending  was  ever  very  serious.  But 
he  was  always  greedy,  with  all  a  Yankee's  greedi- 
ness, after  facts,  and  would  at  least  appear  to  listen 
to  you  with  earnest  respect  and  sympathy  when- 
ever you  plead  for  society  as  the  redeemed  form  of 
our  nature. 

In  short  he  was,  as  I  have  said  before,  funda- 
mentally treacherous  to  civilization,  without  being 
at  all  aware  himself  of  the  fact.  He  himself,  I 
venture  to  say,  was  peculiarly  unaware  of  the  fact. 
He  appeared  to  me  utterly  unconscious  of  himself 
as  either  good  or  evil.  He  had  no  conscience,  in 
fact,  and  lived  by  perception,  which  is  an  altogether 
lower  or  less  spiritual  faculty.  The  more  univer- 
salized a  man  is  by  genius  or  natural  birth,  the  less 
is  he  spiritually  individualized,  making  up  in  breadth 
of  endowment  what  he  lacks  in  depth.  This  was  re- 
markably the  case  with  Emerson.     In  his  books  or 


300     ABSOLUTELY   WITHOUT  PERSONALITY. 

public  capacity  he  was  constantly  electrifying  you 
by  sayings  full  of  divine  inspiration.  In  his  talk 
or  private  capacity  he  was  one  of  the  least  remun- 
erative men  I  ever  encountered.  No  man  could 
look  at  him  speaking  (or  when  he  was  silent  either, 
for  that  matter)  without  having  a  vision  of  the 
divinest  beauty.  But  when  you  went  to  him  to 
hold  discourse  about  the  wondrous  phenomenon, 
you  found  hii!i  absolutely  destitute  of  reflective 
power.  He  had  apparently  no  private  personality ; 
and  if  any  visitor  thought  he  discerned  traces  of 
such  a  thing,  you  may  take  for  granted  that  the 
visitor  himself  was  a  man  of  large  imaginative  re- 
sources. He  was  nothing  else  than  a  show-figure 
of  almighty  power  in  our  nature ;  and  that  he  was 
destitute  of  all  the  apparatus  of  humbuggery  that 
goes  to  eke  out  more  or  less  the  private  pretension 
in  humanity,  only  completed  and  confirmed  the 
extraordinary  fascination  that  belonged  to  him. 
He  was  full  of  living  inspiration  to  me  whenever 
I  saw  him ;  and  yet  I  could  find  in  him  no  trivial 
sign  of  the  selfhood  which  I  found  in  other  men. 
He  was  like  a  vestal  virgin,  indeed,  always  in  min- 
istry upon  the  altar;  but  the  vestal  virgin  had 
doubtless  a  prosaic  side  also,  which  related  her  to 
commonplace  people.  Now  Emerson  was  so  far 
unlike  the  virgin :  he  had  no  prosaic  side  relating 
him   to   ordinary  people.      Judge   Hoar  and   Mr. 


HIS  INFANTILE  INNOCENCE.  3OI 

John  Forbes  constituted  his  spontaneous  poHtical 
conscience;  and  his  domestic  one  (equally  spon- 
taneous) was  supplied  by  loving  members  of  his 
own  family  —  so  that  he  only  connected  with  the 
race  at  second-hand,  and  found  all  the  material 
business  of  life  such  as  voting  and  the  payment 
of  taxes  transacted  for  him  with  marvellous  lack 
of  friction. 

Incontestably  the  main  thing  about  him,  how- 
ever, as  I  have  already  said,  was  that  he  uncon- 
sciously brought  you  face  to  face  with  the  infinite 
in  humanity.  When  I  looked  upon  myself,  or 
upon  the  ordinary  rabble  of  ecclesiastics  and  poli- 
ticians, everything  in  us  seemed  ridiculously  un- 
divine.  When  I  looked  upon  Emerson,  these  same 
undivine  things  were  what  gave  him  his  manifest 
divine  charm.  The  reason  was  that  in  him  every- 
thing seemed  innocent  by  the  transparent  absence 
of  selfhood,  and  in  us  everything  seemed  foul  and 
false  by  its  preternatural  activity.  The  difference 
bet^veen  us  was  made  by  innocence  altogether. 
I  never  thought  it  was  a  real  or  spiritual  difference, 
but  only  a  natural  or  apparent  one.  But  such  as 
it  was,  it  gave  me  my  first  living  impression  of  the 
great  God  almighty  who  alone  is  at  work  in  hu- 
man affairs,  avouching  his  awful  and  adorable  spir- 
itual infinitude  only  through  the  death  and  hell 
wrapped  up   in   our  finite  experience.     This   was 


302  THE  HOLINESS  OF  INNOCENCE. 

Emerson's  incontestable  virtue  to  every  one  who 
appreciated  him,  that  he  recognized  no  God  out- 
side of  himself  and  his  interlocutor,  and  recognized 
him  there  only  as  the  liason  between  the  two,  tak- 
ing care  that  all  their  intercourse  should  be  holy 
with  a  holiness  undreamed  of  before  by  man  or 
angel.  For  it  is  not  a  holiness  taught  by  books 
or  the  example  of  tiresome,  diseased,  self-con- 
scious saints,  but  simply  by  one's  own  redeemed 
flesh  and  blood.  In  short,  the  only  holiness  which 
Emerson  recognized,  and  for  which  he  consistently 
lived,  was  innocence.  And  innocence  —  glory  be 
to  God's  spiritual  incarnation  in  our  nature  !  —  has 
no  other  root  in  us  than  our  unconscious  flesh  and 
bones.  That  is  to  say,  it  attaches  only  to  what  is 
definitively  universal  or  natural  in  our  experience, 
and  hence  appropriates  itself  to  individuals  only  in 
so  far  as  they  learn  to  denude  themselves  of  per- 
sonality or  self-consciousness ;  which  reminds  one 
of  Christ's  mystical  saying :  He  tJiat  findeth  his  life 
{in  himself)  shall  lose  it,  and  he  that  loseth  his  life 
for  my  sake  shall  find  it. 


CHAPTER  XI. 

SWEDENBORG  AND  SCIENCE. 

IT  must  be  admitted  that  Swedenborg's  books 
in  a  surface  aspect  are  impracticable  to  mod- 
ern scientific  thought,  chiefly  from  the  stress  they 
lay  upon  creation  as  a  spiritual  or  living  work  of 
God  subordinating  nature  to  itself,  but  in  part  also 
from  a  certain  misconception  which  science  herself 
is  under  in  regard  to  her  own  historic  function. 

Scientific  thought  revolts  at  the  idea  of  spiritual 
or  living  creation,  because  such  creation  implies 
the  essential  relativity  of  nature  to  human  intelli- 
gence. For  science  is  wont  to  affirm  nature's 
absoluteness,  and  is  indisposed  to  hear  of  its  being 
subordinated  to  anything  in  man.  I  grant  that 
nature  is  absolute  with  respect  to  the  senses,  for 
the  senses  are  the  creature  of  nature,  being  actu- 
ally unvivified  without  it.  But  I  deny  that  nature 
has  any  rational  absoluteness,  for  the  simple  rea- 
son that  any  such  pretension  would  at  once  un- 
settle all  man's  spiritual  history,  or  efface  the  truth 
of  his  supersensuous  experiences.     Science,  how- 


304  SCIENCE  DENIES  MIRACLE. 

ever,  makes  the  senses  the  uhimate  criterion  of 
truth,  allowing  nothing  to  pass  muster  which  is 
not  fundamentally  conformable  to  sensible  expe- 
rience. Thus  it  denies  the  possibility  of  miracle, 
because  "  miracle  contravenes  natural  order  as 
avouched  by  sense!'  These  premises,  for  scientific 
ones,  seem  to  me  extremely  loose.  I  know  of  no 
natural  order  avouched  by  sense,  because  I  do  not 
know  of  a  single  natural  existence  so  avouched. 
A  natural  order  surely  can  take  place  only  among 
natural  existences.  If  the  senses  then  avouch  no 
existence,  how  shall  they  avouch  the  order  which 
pertains  to  it?  The  senses  avouch  only  and  at 
most  natural  fact,  and  they  are  densely  blind  as 
to  any  natural  order  implied  in  the  fact.  The 
senses  do  not  even  see  nature,  which  is  nothing 
but  a  most  general  term  for  all  existence ;  and  the 
senses  have  notoriously  no  generalizing  power,  all 
their  skill  being  exerted  and  exhausted  in  the 
discernment  of  specific  or  particular  things.  For 
the  discernment  of  any  order  applicable  to  these 
things,  especially  of  any  order  so  grand  and  uni- 
versal that  it  is  worthy  to  be  called  natural,  we 
must  look  not  to  the  senses  therefore  but  to  the 
reason.  The  senses  confine  themselves  to  giving 
us  facts;  and  it  is  the  exclusive  office  of  reason 
to  tell  us  of  the  relations  which  exist  among  those 
facts.     For  reason  has  no   more   regard  for  facts 


SWEDENBORG    TAKES  IT  FOR   GRANTED.     3O5 

than  sense  has  for  order;  and  if  there  should  not 
be  a  sensible  plane  of  existence  therefore  below 
the  rational  plane,  to  provide  the  facts  of  nature, 
reason  would  be  wholly  at  a  loss  to  avouch  any 
natural  order.  It  would  be  like  a  man  of  enor- 
mous appetite  starving  for  want  of  bread  and 
water. 

However,  as  Swedenborg's  books  do  on  their 
face  take  miracle  for  granted,  and  especially  set 
up  no  stupid  little  quarrel  with  it,  it  is  the  judg- 
ment of  science  that  every  person  who  respects 
the  books  in  this  their  obvious  or  surface  aspect 
is  liable  to  the  imputation  of  superstition.  It  is 
not  worth  any  one's  while  at  the  present  day  to 
cavil  at  this  judgment.  At  least  I  do  not  feel  it 
to  be  worth  my  while.  For  though  I  hold  that 
the  progress  of  the  human  mind  in  the  past  has 
been  contingent  upon  men  believing  that  miracle 
was  not  only  possible,  but  was  the  characteristic 
form  of  God's  action  in  human  affairs,  I  yet  have 
no  idea  that  this  belief  craves  any  longer  the  wit- 
ness of  any  historic  fact  or  event  to  keep  it  in 
countenance,  since  science  itself  affords  it  ample 
and  conclusive  though  unconscious  justification. 
Doubtless,  in  early  days,  when  Christianity  was 
young  as  a  literal  doctrine  upon  earth,  it  very 
much  promoted  the  spread  of  it  to  believe  that 
its  founder  was  an  altogether  exceptional  person, 


306  THE  DIFFERENCE    UNIMPORTANT. 

infinitely  removed  from  the  conditions  of  our  or- 
dinary peccant  humanity;  because  the  idea  the 
wisest  men  then  entertained  of  God  was  so  purely 
inhuman,  or  deistic,  as  frankly  to  preclude  any 
direct  approximation  between  the  two  orders  of 
being,  and  suspend  our  historic  progress  conse- 
quently upon  the  presumed  mediation  of  some 
nondescript  third  person.  Accordingly,  that  Christ 
was  born  of  a  virgin,  and  that  he  rose  bodily  from 
his  grave  three  days  after  death,  bearing  with  him 
his  proper  flesh  and  bones  in  his  ascent  to  the 
skies,  was  an  actual  necessity  to  the  best  religious 
culture  of  the  time ;  because  men  were  not  then 
free  to  think  spiritually  or  livingly  of  God,  and 
hence  were  unable  to  recognize  any  revelation  of 
the  divine  name  in  the  earth,  which  did  not  clothe 
itself  in  this  figurative  or  symbolic  costume. 

But  I  am  far  enough  from  imagining  any  such 
necessity  to  be  a  demand  of  our  present  religious 
culture.  Indeed,  the  most  truly  reverential  thought 
of  the  day  revolts  from  supposing  that  it  would 
further  the  interests  of  spiritual  Christianity  —  that 
is,  Christianity  regarded  no  longer  as  a  mere  doc- 
trine, but  as  a  life  —  to  go  on  cherishing  the  worn- 
out  traditional  beliefs  which  signalized  its  doctrinal 
promulgation.  On  the  contrary,  enlightened  men 
everywhere  are  beginning  to  feel  reasonably  sure 
that  nothing  is  so  prejudicial  to  the  vital  influence 


LEGENDARY  PERSON  OF  CHRIST.  307 

of  Christianity  —  nothing  so  hostile  to  its  infinite 
divine  genius  —  as  men's  continuing  to  hold  to  this 
legendary  personality  of  the  Christ  as  having  any 
longer  a  particle  of  divine  truth  or  significance. 

For  what  is  the  recognized  scope  or  spirit  of 
the  Christian  revelation  of  God's  name?  Unques- 
tionably, love  to  the  humatt  race,  good  will  to  all 
mankind,  and  not  to  any  special  exceptional 
people  or  persons  of  that  kind.  But  what  a  gro- 
tesque sort  of  love  to  mankind  would  it  argue  in 
God,  to  find  him  shutting  up  all  the  blessedness 
designed  for  universal  man  to  the  bosom  of  the 
mystical  person  who  did  nothing  but  reveal  it,^ 
and  making  all  other  men  depend  upon  their  vol- 
untary attitude  toward  this  same  legendary  person, 
whether  they  themselves  should  have  any  part  in 
the  promised  salvation  or  not !     Do  I   err,  then, 

1  And  even  that  so  very  dimly  that  there  can  be  no  doubt  that 
the  Christian  revelation  of  God's  life  in  man  never  began  to  vin- 
dicate itself  against  the  dense  inveterate  stupidity  of  the  church 
until  within  the  last  century- —  all  its  previous  activity  for  nearly 
two  thousand  years  having  been  required  practically  to  harmonize 
men's  outward  or  moral  relations  to  one  another,  or  prevent  them 
actually  cutting  each  other's  throats,  while  it  inaugurated  that 
quasi  universal  or  natural  order  in  the  earth  which  is  called  civili- 
zation, and  which  itself  was  needed  figuratively  to  base  the  eternal 
spiritual  revelation.  In  point  of  fact,  the  Christian  revelation, 
though  it  literally  took  place  two  thousand  years  ago,  has  only  just 
now  succeeded  in  getting  itself  suspected  of  being  a  revelation  of 
man's  spiritual  life  to  himself,  or  of  being  a  gospel_/?rj/  to  his  soul, 
and  only  afterwards  to  his  body. 


308  NEEDFUL  DIVORCE  OF  LETTER  AND  SPIRIT. 

in  saying  that  the  bare  persistence  of  this  stohd 
traditional  prejudice  in  regard  to  the  person  of 
Christ — let  alone  that  spiritual  revival  and  exten- 
sion of  it,  which  the  more  impudent  and  aggressive 
of  our  fanatics  are  striving  to  bring  about — is  to 
the  last  degree  hurtful  to  Christianity  regarded  as 
a  divine  spirit  or  life  in  men,  by  convincing  every 
thoughtful,  dispassionate  man,  that,  however  the 
religion  as  a  letter  may  have  thriven  in  respect 
to  other  and  feebler  faiths,  it  is  spiritually  on  the 
same  base  level  with  them  all?  In  fact  it  seems 
to  me  that  nothing  can  much  longer  save  the 
divine-human  spirit  or  life  of  the  Christian  truth 
from  the  utter  blight  and  mildew  of  its  letter,  but 
the  suing  out  of  a  resolute  and  speedy  divorce  d 
vinculo  mati'iinonii  between  them. 

For  aught  I  care,  then,  science  may  quarrel  with 
the  Christian  church  a  outrance ;  for  the  church 
by  this  time  is  a  mere  cadaver  in  the  earth,  solic- 
iting nothing  from  intelligent,  humane  persons  but 
sepulture  out  of  human  sight,  and  a  tender  grave 
requiem  at  best.  But  I  insist  that  it  has  no  ghost 
of  a  quarrel  with  Swedenborg,  whose  manly,  ro- 
bust, most  veracious  books  rang  out  the  death- 
knell  of  ecclesiasticism  long  before  science,  in 
anything  like  her  present  bumpkin  and  bellicose 
aspect,  at  least,  had  come  to  self-consciousness. 
The  only  limitation  I  will  allow  any  one  without 


GENESIS  OF  HUMOR.  309 

protest  to  charge  against  Swedenborg  as  a  writer, 
is  that  he  is  too  preternaturally  serious  to  give 
his  critical  faculties  fair  play.  He  was  unfortu- 
nately of  a  most  devout  temperament  or  mental 
habit,  inclining  him  to  an  over-indulgent  esti- 
mate of  the  merely  pious  element  in  the  church  — 
that  element  of  false  show  or  deceptive  appear- 
ance which  is  usually  denominated  Pharisaism. 
To  say  all  in  a  word,  Swedenborg's  intellect  was 
singularly  deficient  in  /minor  —  a  faculty  which 
best  expresses  the  distinctive  difference  betsveen 
the  old  and  new  intellect,  because  its  tendency  is 
evermore  to  identify  God  with  the  universal  or 
unconscious  element  in  humanity,  and  so  give  rise 
to  a  far  more  genuine,  tender,  and  affectionate 
style  of  piety,  or  expression  of  religious  rever- 
ence, than  the  world  has  yet  known.  Humor 
admits  of  no  specific  definition,  but  may  be  de- 
scribed generically  as  the  change  wrought  in  the 
human  mind  by  a  growing  conviction  among  men 
of  the  essential  hiinibiiggcry  that  underlies  and  is 
the  private  religious  pretension  in  humanity,  min- 
gled more  or  less  with  a  kindly  compassionate 
feeling  which  they  have  to  each  other  as  having 
been,  all,  thoroughly  duped  and  victimized  by  it 
in  the  past.  However,  define  or  describe  it  as 
we  may,  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  what  we  call 
humor  finds   its  main  nutriment  in  the  histrionic 


310  CHURCH  A XD    THEATRE. 

or  self-righteous  tendencies  of  men — those  ten- 
dencies which  lead  us  to  covet  great  things  for 
ourselves,  such  as  acknowledged  eminence  in  the 
religious  life,  or  corresponding  respectability  in 
the  secular  life.  It  is  very  edifying,  but  at  the 
same  time  strictly  natural,  that  the  church,  which 
has  always  been  the  focus  or  hot-bed  of  these 
pious  and  respectable  pretences  among  men  — 
sacrificing,  indeed,  all  interior  goodness  and  truth 
of  character  to  them  —  should  have  always  hated 
the  theatre  with  signal  hatred,  because  the  thea- 
tre, and  especially  of  late,  has  always  done  God's 
kingdom  essential  though  unconscious  service  in 
exposing  these  pious  and  respectable  pretenders 
(hypocrites,  Christ  named  them)  to  well-deserved 
infamy.  But  however  all  this  may  be,  what  I 
insist  upon  is,  that  humor,  which  is  at  present 
the  new  or  divinely  vitalized  form  of  the  intellect 
among  men,  would  have  little  or  no  subsistence 
left  to  it,  if  human  life  should  ever  grow  sick  of 
its  piddling,  subjective,  or  purely  ecclesiastical  and 
civic  aims,  and  become  utterly  merged  and  lost 
in  aesthetic  or  grandly  objective  and  humanitary 
ones. 

I  feel  that  Swedenborg  is  above  criticism  in  all 
he  says  dogmatically  of  God's  spiritual  attributes, 
or  the  essential  perfections  which  belong  to  him. 
But  at  the  same  time  I  see  that  he  was  not  and 


SWEDENBORG  DISTANCES  HIMSELF.        31I 

could  not  be  half  so  well  acquainted  practically 
as  we,  his  own  readers,  are  at  this  day  with  God's 
natural  infinitude,  or  existential  perfection  —  that 
infinitude  or  perfection  which  characterizes  him, 
not  in  himself,  but  in  the  lord,  or  his  revealed 
relation  to  his  creatures.  At  least  we  may  be  sure 
that  Swedenborg  could  have  known  nothing  liv- 
ingly  or  at  first-hand  of  God's  natural  humanity, 
but  only  doctrinally,  through  his  exceptional  inter- 
course with  angelic  spirits.  For  scarcely  had  this 
infinite  and  glorified  humanity  become  spiritually 
avouched  in  its  own  kingdom,  or  the  natural  sphere 
of  the  human  mind,  before  the  brave  old  man  died, 
or  forever  disappeared  from  mortal  sight  among 
the  angels.  And  it  is  obvious  to  a  glance  that  the 
angels  were  even  worse-placed  than  he  himself  had 
been  to  discern  the  living  divine  truth  of  the  nat- 
ural sphere ;  since  now  by  Ids  removal  from  nature 
they  were  deprived  of  all  knowledge  of  natural 
fact,  save  in  conjunction  with  which  divine  truth 
does  not  exist. 

It  is  doubtless  for  this  reason  that  Swedenborg's 
books,  utterly  priceless  as  they  are  to  me  consid- 
ered as  vehicles  of  refined  celestial  and  spiritual 
information,  yet  practically  lack  atmosphere  to  my 
appreciation ;  are  destitute  of  that  exquisitely  di- 
vine and  exhilarating  natural  aroma  which  all  dis- 
course relating  to  these  high  themes  ought  in  this 


312     HIS  BOOKS  LACK  NATURAL   ATMOSPHERE. 

day  to  leave  behind  it.  Thus  it  is,  that  whether 
I  read  of  heaven  and  its  orderly  peaceful  vicissi- 
tudes, or  of  hell  and  its  insane  delights,  and  feel 
the  whilst  my  moral  sense  amply  satisfied,  I  must 
say  that  to  my  aesthetic  sense,  which  is  the  organ 
of  the  spontaneous  or  divine-natural  life  in  me,  the 
result  is  very  much  the  same  in  either  case,  being 
always  very  dull  and  prosaic,  with  the  poetic  ele- 
ment very  nearly  eliminated.  I  am  sure  to  feel,  in 
both  cases  alike,  this  deadly  atmospheric  ex- 
haustion or  deoxidization,  this  absence  of  a  divine- 
natiiral  glow  on  the  obvious  face  of  things ;  and  I 
cry  out  at  once  to  angel  and  devil  with  infinite 
gusto  and  good-will,  "■  A  plague  o'  both  your  houses, 
if  these  are  all  the  boasted  spiritual  world  has  got 
to  offer  us !  "  In  short,  a  fatal  stagnation  seems  to 
my  intelligence  to  brood  over  both  hemispheres 
of  the  spiritual  world  equally,  as  if  the  chill  of 
night  were  fast  settling  down  upon  them  forever; 
the  stagnation  being  only  feebly  diversified  by 
occasional  "glorifications"  in  heaven,  or  occasional 
penal  "  demonstrations  "  in  hell.  While  as  to  any 
breath  of  the  life  we  are  beginning  faintly  to  realize 
here  —  as  to  any  breath  of  a  distinctively /?/(^//c 
DIVINE-NATURAL  life  or  consciousness  of  men, 
coming  to  absorb  or  blot  out  henceforth  their  ob- 
scene, unwholesome,  and  ahommahle  private  life  or 
consciousness,  with  all  the  petty  partisan  heavens 


SOME  SILL  Y  PRIVA  TE  HOPES.  3  1 3 

and  hells  bred  of  such  life  or  consciousness  —  ever 
rippling  the  atmosphere  of  these  infatuated  spiritual 
people,  I  catch  no  faintest  echo  of  such  a  thing. 
Thus  I  have  been  gradually  led  to  cherish  the  hope 
that  I  myself  in  heart,  or  on  my  spiritual  side,  am 
thoroughly  weaned  from  all  desire  to  enact  infuturo 
the  role  either  of  angel  or  devil ;  for  I  confess  that 
I  have  long  since  confided  in  God's  great  mercy 
that  I  too  shall  eventually  be  found  both  in  heart 
and  mind  so  broadly  human  or  universal  as  to  be 
unfit  to  add  a  feather's  weight  to  either  scale  of 
that  old,  always  inorganic,  and  now  most  prepos- 
terous and  extinct  spiritual  conflict  between  heaven 
and  hell,  or  good  and  evil.  I  do  not  hesitate  to 
say  that  this  conflict  has  now  become  preposterous ; 
because,  since  the  Last  Judgment  in  the  spiritual 
world,  hell  has  plainly  got  the  upper  hand  in 
human  aff"airs.  Evil  in  fact  is  now  so  palpably  en- 
throned both  in  church  and  state,  that  infidelity  to 
public  and  private  trusts  is  fast  becoming  the  rule 
with  men,  and  fidelity  the  exception ;  while  the 
conjugal  and  family  spheres  of  life,  which  used  in 
some  measure  to  preserve  and  reflect  the  traditions 
of  man's  inward  or  spiritual  life,  do  little  now  but 
obediently  reverberate  this  rising  diabolic  inspir- 
ation, to  the  great  profit  and  delectation  of  our 
leading  newspapers. 

In  fact  I  am  only  too  content  to  be  and  remain 


314  SOME  SILLY  PRIVATE  HOPES. 

what  God's  creative  and  redemptive  providence  is 
sure  to  make  me ;  and,  serene  in  that  abiding  sen- 
timent, I  cannot  but  feel  myself  inwardly  absolved 
alike  from  private  hope  and  private  fear.  The 
truth  of  God's  natural  humanity  is  the  truth  of 
the  creator  s  actual  bond  fide  incarnation  in  his 
creature's  nature ;  and  if  my  very  nature  henceforth 
allies  me  thus  spiritually  with  God,  I  may  both 
safely  disregard  the  contingent  conjunction  with 
him  promised  me  by  the  skies,  and  cheerfully 
despise  the  contingent  separation  from  him  threat- 
ened me  by  the  abysses.  For  a  man's  selfhood  is 
infallibly  derived  to  him  through  his  nature,  being 
in  the  long  run  its  veracious  exponent  and  expres- 
sion. Whatever  therefore  be  the  revealed  destiny 
of  my  race  or  nature,  such  I  doubt  not  will  be,  in 
its  proper  proportionate  measure,  my  own  spiritual 
destiny.  And  I  accordingly  find  myself —  insig- 
nificant mite  that  I  always  in  soul  feel  myself  to  be 
—  continually  uplifted  by  an  almighty  arm  above 
every  sphere  of  perturbation,  into  one  of  eternal 
innocence  and  peace. 

But  I  am  digressing;  perhaps  not  altogether  so, 
either.  I  had  no  purpose  in  beginning  but  to 
affirm  that  what  wc  call  nature,  or  the  external 
world,  is  a  literal  echo  or  repercussion  of  the  spir- 
itual world  —  the  world  of  heaven  and  hell ;  and  is 
therefore    itself    spiritually    uncreated,    forms    no 


NATURE  A   DIVINE  BLOTTER.  315 

proper  portion  indeed  of  God's  spiritual  creation, 
so  long  at  least  as  we  do  not  consent  to  accept 
natural  echoes  for  spiritual  realities.  God's  spirit- 
ual creation,  and  he  has  no  other,  stops  at  man  — 
mind  and  heart,  male  and  female ;  and  the  physical 
universe,  absurdly  as  we  overestimate  it,  is  nothing 
after  all  but  a  divine  blotter,  or  sphere  of  waste, 
appended  to  his  true  or  spiritual  creation,  in  the 
interest  and  for  the  comfort  of  us,  its  naturally 
thick-headed  denizens.  We  require  just  such  a 
fixed  and  fallacious  cosmical  scheme  as  this  in  order 
to  give  us  cumulative  experience,  or  to  enable  us 
to  learn  by  failure  and  suffering  what  spiritual  dolts 
we  invariably  are  in  our  individual  right,  and  so 
be  led  at  last  to  seek  God's  salvation  by  studiously 
allying  ourselves  in  unity  with  our  kind.  Nature 
has  thus  to  our  thought  no  absolute  value  beyond 
that  of  a  divinely-constructed  looking-glass,  in- 
tended to  reflect  the  creature  such  as  he  is  in  him- 
self, and  thus  negatively  to  attest  his  creator's 
perfection ;  and  all  its  demands  upon  us,  conse- 
quently, are  summed  up  in  the  one  great  command 
to  make  its  relative  value,  which  is  the  value  we  set 
upon  it,  harmonize  as  soon  as  possible  with  this, 
its  absolute  value,  as  a  looking-glass. 

Let  me,  however,  do  no  manner  of  injustice  to 
Swedenborg.  I  am  persuaded  —  indeed  it  is  evi- 
dent on  the  face  of  all  his  books  —  that  no  one 


3l6  SWEDENBORCS  LIMITATIONS. 

felt  more  keenly  than  he,  on  the  side  of  his  intel- 
lect, the  spiritual  degradation  at  which  the  formal 
or  visible  church  had  arrived ;  but  I  do  not  think 
that  he  felt  zvitJi  his  heart  how  greatly  the  spiritual 
effect  that  he  recognized  had  been  owing  to  the 
prevalence  of  this  hideous  conventional  piety  in 
the  church,  or  the  spread  of  a  fierce  self-righteous 
temper.  No  one  has  better  exposed,  incidentally , 
the  blasphemy  of  a  man,  or  set  of  men,  cultivat- 
ing a  title  to  their  creator's  favor.  Still,  had  he 
written  at  this  day,  I  cannot  but  think  that  the 
incidental  cause  would  have  swelled  into  the  prin- 
cipal one.  That  is  to  say,  he  did  the  work  he 
was  given  to  do  toward  the  church  dryly  and  du- 
tifully, in  excellent  fashion  moreover,  level  to  the 
humblest  capacity,  so  that  his  books  are  actually 
austere  and  grim  with  all  the  requisite  truth  on 
the  subject.  All  I  say  is,  that  he  did  not  do  his 
work  htiinoronsly,  as  identifying  himself  and  his 
own  fortunes  with  the  wretched  moribund  culprit 
he  was  criticising,  or  as  feeling  that  intimate  and 
infinite  divine  GOOD  which  is  merely  masked,  and 
never  really  hurt  or  perverted,  by  all  our  evil. 
As  to  feeling  that  he  himself  indeed,  and  all  his 
own  most  devout,  respectable  friends  and  cronies 
were  just  as  deep  in  the  mire  of  self-righteousness 
as  any  one  else ;  as  to  feeling,  in  other  words, 
that  selfhood  or  self-righteousness  is  the  inveter- 


SCIEA'CE'S  QUARREL    WITH  HIM.  317 

ate  disease  of  the  created  nature,  its  ineradicable 
peaclium  or  conscious  flower,  being  what  alone 
fits  it  to  be,  by  contrast,  a  suitable  revelation  of 
the  creator's  spiritual  infinitude  or  perfection,  so 
blending  all  men  in  each  other's  loving  regard, 
by  removing  from  each  the  special  responsibility 
he  is  under  for  his  common  nature  —  this  was 
hugely  impracticable  to  Swedenborg,  I  doubt  not, 
for  the  simple  reason  that  the  race-sentiment 
(that  living  and  quickening  divine  presence  in  us 
which  makes  us  feel  humanity  to  be  venerable  or 
respectable  only  as  a  public  force,  and  altogether 
ridiculous  or  contemptible  as  a  private  one)  was 
not  then  sufficiently  pronounced  in  the  earth  to 
shatter  the  old  devout  credos,  and  the  empty  in- 
dolent formularies  in  fashion  along  with  them, 
which  had  so  long  smothered  it,  or  rendered  it 
practically  inoperative. 

But  this,  after  all,  is  only  my  own  fantastic  pri- 
vate quarrel  with  Swedenborg,  not  at  all  science's 
grave  and  public  one.  I  have  had  the  weakness 
sometimes  to  fancy  that  his  style  would  be  very 
much  bettered  in  itself,  and  hence  react  favor- 
ably upon  the  spread  of  his  books,  if  in  writing 
them  he  could  have  availed  himself  of  the  freer 
spirit  that  has  been  bred  of  God's  recent  provi- 
dences in  human  affairs.  And  yet,  since  writing 
the  last  sentence  of  the   preceding  paragraph,  I 


3l8  SCIENCE'S  QUARREL    WITH  HIM. 

am  afraid  I  have  done  injustice  to  Swedenborg, 
remembering  his  matchless  characterizations  of 
the  selfhood  in  man.  At  all  events,  it  seems  the 
mere  wantonness  of  criticism  to  demand  of  a  writer 
that  he  be  what  it  is  plainly  impossible  he  should 
have  been.  This,  however,  is  not  the  fault  of  the 
criticism  which  science  makes  of  Swedenborg. 
Her  criticism  is  not  at  all  wanton  or  personal,  and 
consequently  is  much  less  summarily  to  be  dealt 
with. 

What  science  alleges  against  Swedenborg  is, 
that  he  discredits  the  fixed  order  of  nature,  not 
only  by  failing  to  seize  every  opportunity  to  in- 
terpose a  protest  against  miracle  as  a  violation  of 
that  order,  but  by  apparently  taking  for  granted 
in  all  his  books  the  abstract  credibility  of  mira- 
cle; thus  plainly  attributing  to  God  {if  indeed 
the  order  of  natiLre  be  divinely  fixed  —  and  who 
has  ever  doubted  it?)  a  contradictory  or  irregular 
mode  of  action.  Obviously  this  is  no  light  cavil 
against  the  author,  to  be  dismissed  with  a  sneer, 
but  a  serious,  well-weighed  imputation  upon  his 
scientific  integrity  or  completeness.  It  demands 
accordingly  a  dispassionate  consideration  from 
every  one  who  prizes  Swedenborg's  importance  to 
philosophy,  and  wishes  well  to  the  prosperity  of 
the  extraordinary  literature  which  illustrates  that 
importance  —  a  literature  in  my  opinion  so  very 


NATURE   ONLY  A   SHADOW.  319 

remarkable  as  to  turn  all  the  current  most  res- 
pectable literature  of  the  world  into  comparative 
rubbish. 

What  weight,  then,  in  the  light  of  his  own 
professed  principles  is  due  to  the  charge  which 
science  brings  against  Swedenborg?  No  weight 
at  all  that  I  can  see,  since  it  runs  utterly  counter 
to  Swedenborg's  intellectual  principles  that  na- 
ture should  claim  in  itself  a  fixed  order.  He  in 
fact  is  the  only  scientific  man  I  know  whose  intel- 
ligence is  large  enough  to  permit  him  to  deny 
that  nature  is  essentially  a  fixed  quantity.  To  be 
sure  he  does  not  make  the  denial  scientifically,  or 
in  a  way  of  induction  from  particulars,  for  this 
would  be  manifestly  absurd ;  but  the  denial  is 
none  the  less  valid  on  that  account.  He  even 
makes  it  implicitly,  indeed,  rather  than  explicitly, 
which  is  very  much  more  significant ;  for  a  man's 
conscious  opinions  are  of  small  account  to  the 
intellect  compared  with  the  unconscious  logic 
which  determines  them.  Now  if,  with  Sweden- 
borg, we  admit  creation  to  be  spiritual  or  living, 
we  can  see  at  a  glance  that  nature  has,  and  can 
have,  no  reality  save  as  imagery  or  shadow.  It 
is  nothing  more  and  nothing  less  than  the  image 
or  shadow  of  the  creative  life  in  man.  It  is  not 
the  creative  life  itself  by  any  means,  for  that  is 
spiritual  or  infinite.     It  is  all  simply  the  lifeless 


320'  NA TURE   ONL Y  A  ' SHADOW. 

shadow,  the  senile,  obsequious  image  of  the  spir- 
itual creation,  which  is  man ;   who  being  created, 

—  that  is,  having  in  himself  no  underived  being  — 
requires  nature  to  authenticate  him,  as  it  were,  to 
himself,  to  give  him  self-consciousness,  which  is 
quasi  or  constitutional  projection  from  the  infi- 
nite. And  whoever  heard  of  a  shadow  being 
substance  save  to  the  senses? 

I  beg  the  reader  not  to  let  the  point  here 
made  slip  from  his  mind  as  unimportant;  for  it  is 
important  enough  to  signalize  the  exact  difference 
between  the  intellect,  or  common-sense,  of  men 
and  the  mind  of  science.  Or,  to  avoid  ambiguity, 
let  me  say  that  it  expresses  the  eternal  difference 
between  the   religious    and    the  scientific  intellect 

—  that  is,  the  intellect  that  is  moored  to  infinite 
being  as  a  basis  for  its  hopes  and  aspirations  — 
and  the  intellect  that,  as  a  basis  for  its  more  lim- 
ited hopes  and  aspirations,  is  moored  to  finite  ex- 
istence. For  what  characteristically  distinguishes 
the  two  intellects  is,  that  one  has  a  substantial 
basis,  the  other  but  a  shadowy  one. 

We  are  all  familiar  with  the  constitution  of  shad- 
ows or  images.  When  we  look,  for  example,  in 
the  glass,  and  see  our  own  visages  obediently 
reproduced  there,  we  know  that  that  effect  is  an 
optical  illusion  generated  by  the  rays  of  light  that 
go  from  our  features,  impinging  upon  an  opaque 


GENESIS  OF  SHADOWS.  32 1 

substance,  and  finding  themselves  thus  reflected 
back  to  us.  The  image  or  shadow  thus  produced 
is  no  substantial  or  objective  thing,  evidently; 
because  if  it  were  it  would  report  itself  to  all  our 
senses  impartially.  Now  what  has  no  objective 
reality  (or  is  not  first  a  tiling  to  our  senses)  must 
be  a  fortiori  destitute  of  subjective  personality  or 
consciousness ;  and  if  it  be  confessedly  without 
either  of  these  characteristic  marks  of  existence, 
it  must  necessarily  acknowledge  itself  a  mere  vis- 
ual illusion,  incidental  to  our  finite  intelligence, 
and  finding  its  sole  raison  d'etre  in  the  uses  it 
subserves  to  that  imperfect  intelligence.  Such 
undeniably  is  the  genesis  of  shadows  or  images  — 
in  short,  of  what  we  distinguish  as  tmreal  exist- 
ence by  calling  it  phenomenal.  They  have  in 
themselves  no  objective  being,  or  are  not  so  much 
as  things,  to  begin  with ;  and  consequently  they 
are  without  subjective  existence,  or  conscious  per- 
sonality. And  what  in  itself  is  destitute  of  both 
sense  and  consciousness  is  obviously  not  em- 
braced in  natura  rernm,  and  indicates  the  supreme 
subserviency  of  nature  to  a  higher  power. 

Of  course  I  do  not  mean  to  say  that  Swedenborg 
is  foolish  enough  to  ascribe  to  nature  the  same 
unreality  we  ascribe  to  the  shadow.  For  he  him- 
self admits  that  nature  is  most  real  to  sense,  being 
in  fact  the  only  reality  known  to  it.     But  I  do 


322  NATURE  A   SHADOW  TO  SPIRIT. 

mean  to  say  that  Swedenborg,  though  he  by  no 
means  ascribes  the  same  unreality  to  nature  which 
men  ascribe  to  shadows  or  images,  yet  ascribes 
an  every  way  corresponding  unreality  to  it;  that 
is,  a  rational  unreality.  As  the  shadow  is  unreal 
to  the  senses,  or  to  thought  derived  from  the 
senses,  so  nature  is  unreal  to  spiritual  thought. 
The  shadow  or  image,  mind  you,  is  not  unreal  to 
sense  as  shadow  or  image,  but  only  as  thing  or 
substance.  Just  so,  nature  is  never  unreal  to  spir- 
itual thought  as  apparent  or  phenomenal  substance 
to  existence — that  is,  as  furnishing  a  logical  base 
or  background  of  unity  to  all  the  particulars  em- 
braced in  it — but  only  as  furnishing ///«/  inward 
relation  of  life  or  being  to  existence,  which  natural 
or  unregenerate  thought  cannot  help  ascribing  to 
it.  In  short,  just  as  the  shadow  or  image  sensibly 
appeals  for  its  reality  to  some  foreign  and  superior 
intelligence,  so  to  spiritual  or  regenerate  thought 
nature  cheerfully  acknowledges  her  own  reality  to 
be  divinely  human — that  is,  to  be  solely  consti- 
tuted by  the  conjoint  presence  in  it  of  infinite 
and  finite. 

Thus  nature,  in  Swedenborg's  estimation,  is  a 
fixed  or  absolute  order  only  to  the  childish  su- 
perficial judgment  of  sense.  Winter  and  summer, 
seed-time  and  harvest,  night  and  day,  decay  and 
growth,    pain    and  pleasure,  —  these  things,  with 


A    TRUE  REVELATION  OF  GOD.  323 

very  large  incidental  variations  even  at  that,  con- 
stitute to  Swedenborg  that  fixed  or  constant  order 
of  the  senses,  which  alone  deserves  the  name  of  nat- 
tiral  or  universal  order,  because  it  alone  through 
all  the  comprehensive  range  of  its  dominion  makes 
and  keeps  sense  rigidly  nutritive  and  ministerial 
to  the  mind  of  man,  which  is  God's  true  life  in 
him.  Outside  of  this  order  of  the  senses,  conse- 
quently, neither  God  nor  man  exists,  nor  do  they 
show  either  of  them  the  least  sign  of  a  desire  to 
exist.  But  within  it,  what  infinite  divine  humili- 
ation to  every  form  of  human  want !  Within  it, 
what  indefinite  responsive  human  expansion  to 
every  form  of  divine  perfectness !  But,  good 
heavens !  science  does  not  pretend,  any  more  than 
Swedenborg,  that  the  senses,  however  truly  and 
sharply  they  define,  or  even  of  themselves  consti- 
tute, our  natural  or  universal  existence,  have  any 
claim  to  constitute  also  our  spiritual  being,  or  our 
inmost  individual  life  —  does  she?  Because  if 
science  does  this,  she  pronounces  herself  pitiably 
idiotic  with  reference  to  the  intellect ;  and  this  so 
far  as  science  is  concerned  should  end  the  con- 
troversy. 

Not,  however,  so  far  as  Swedenborg  is  con- 
cerned. It  is  due  to  the  intrepid  soul  of  the  man, 
and  to  his  bold,  free  intelligence,  to  declare  that 
he   at   least  has   no    such   pinched    conception    of 


324        NATURAL   ORDER  NOT  A   FINALITY. 

cosmical  order  as  would  lead  him  to  suppose,  with 
science,  that  it  is  literally  or  materially  constituted, 
being  essentially  uncomplicated  with  mind  as  its 
sole  source.  This  is  the  view  of  science,  and  it 
is  an  unspeakably  shallow  and  superstitious  one. 
Swedenborg's  implicit  idea  on  the  contrary  is 
(I  am  not  sure  but  that  it  is  also  his  explicit  one, 
which,  however,  is  vastly  less  important)  that  the 
world's  order  in  fact  is  the  realized  mind  of  the 
world  —  what  we  call  mind  being  order  in  sub- 
jective or  spiritually  acute  form,  and  what  we  call 
order  being  mind  in  objective  or  sensibly  chronic 
form ;  sense  itself  being  the  miraculous  divine 
grasp  or  clutch  which  holds  object  and  subject  in 
most  living  solution,  and  yet  keeps  them  both  so 
exquisitely  distinct  as  to  make  their  intercourse  an 
apt  expressive  emblem  of  the  infinite  and  eternal 
tie  between  creator  and  creature.  The  charge 
accordingly  which  science  brings  against  Sweden- 
borg,  of  discrediting  natural  order,  can  be  true 
only  when  natural  order  offers  itself  as  a  goal  to 
the  mind  instead  of  a  vehicle,  or  when  it  would 
make  itself  the  chosen  mistress  of  the  mind  in- 
stead of  its  paid  handmaiden  ;  and  then  it  should 
be  discredited.  Natural  order,  according  to  Swe- 
denborg,  was  never  intended  for  a  finality  to  the 
mind,  but  at  most  as  a  spur  or  discipline  to  its 
advanced    spiritual    growth.     Of  course,  then,   he 


SWEDENBORG  SCIENTIFICALLY  SPOTLESS.    325 

not  only  actually  and  invariably  discredits  it  as 
such  finality,  but  he  would  doubtless  deride  it 
with  endless  scoffing  and  contempt  if  it  had  ever 
come  to  him  (as  it  does  to  so  many  of  our  mod- 
ern scientific  men)  affecting  to  control  or  coerce 
human  thought  in  the  efforts  it  makes  spiritually 
to  span  the  gulf  which  to  that  infirm  thought 
separates  between  infinite  and  finite  —  and  beside 
which,  I  might  go  on  to  say,  science,  in  the  de- 
voted indefatigable  person  of  Mr.  Herbert  Spen- 
cer, insists  upon  eternally  standing,  to  roll  up  the 
whites  of  wan  ineffectual  eyes  to  a  blind  unwit- 
ting heaven. 

It  is  plain  to  see,  then,  that  on  his  own  princi- 
ples, which  I  confess  seem  to  me  indisputably 
those  of  the  intellect,  Swedenborg  stands  at  least 
fully  acquitted  of  doing  any  injustice  to  nature's 
order.  But  I  go  further  than  this.  I  insist  that 
very  much  larger  justice  is  due  to  Swedenborg 
than  is  supplied  by  this  mere  negative  verdict  of 
not-prove7i.  For  I  maintain  that,  tried  on  Ids  own 
principles,  he  stands  not  merely  acquitted  of  any 
delinquency  to  science,  but  fully  avouched  as  the 
only  writer  in  the  long  annals  of  the  mind  who 
has  done  adequate  justice  to  nature's  order  in 
showing  it  to  be  in  itself  plainly  miraculous,  as 
revealing  the  direct  creative  presence  and  power 
of  God  —  so  making  a  permanent  bridge  between 


326    A    MAN  OF  IRREPROACHABLE  MODESTY. 

science  and  philosophy,  or  reconcihng  sense  with 
reason  in  the  precise  focus  and  stalking-ground 
of  their  contrariety. 

I  know  very  well  that  I  shall  seem,  in  the  esti- 
mation of  many  small  partisans,  to  be  endowing 
Swedenborg  with  immense  intellectual  prestige  by 
thus  insisting  upon  his  incomparable  services  to 
the  mind  in  furnishing  it  with  an  adequate  doc- 
trine of  nature.  But,  poor  old  man  !  I  do  not  think 
it  ever  occurred  to  him  to  attribute  the  endless 
intellectual  worth  of  his  books  to  himself;  and  I 
am  very  sure  that  I  for  my  part  am  in  no  danger 
of  doing  so.  It  is  in  my  opinion  distinction 
enough  for  Swedenborg  that  he  was  a  devout, 
modest  scholar,  who  in  the  midst  of  unexampled 
experiences  —  experiences  which  must  surely  have 
addled  the  light,  insincere  brains  of  almost  any 
of  our  ecclesiastical  or  literary  showmen  —  never 
lost  his  head,  but  went  the  even  tenor  of  his  way 
without  once  looking  to  right  or  left  to  solicit  the 
empty  verdict  of  men's  stupid  wonder  or  applause. 
To  personal  ambition  indeed  in  all  its  forms  he 
was  spiritually  dead.  The  consequence  is  that  no 
one  who  is  intelligently  familiar  with  his  remark- 
able books  ever  feels  his  admiration  toward  the 
author  in  the  least  degree  quickened.  He  is  filled 
very  often  with  surprise  and  delight  and  even 
adoration   at   the    transcendent    truths   which   are 


HIS  EGOTISM  UNNOTICEABLE.  327 

strewn  along  his  pages  as  thickly  as  stars  along 
the  milky  way ;  but  no  one,  I  venture  to  say,  ever 
feels  even  a  momentary  temptation  to  magnify 
the  author.  Why?  Because  in  the  light  of  these 
transcendent  truths  all  men,  good  and  evil,  rich 
and  poor,  wise  and  ignorant  alike,  sink  into  such 
insignificance  that  one  willingly  forgets  the  stupid 
conventional  differences  which  our  vulgar  mislead- 
ing daylight  breeds  between  them ;  and  the  di- 
vine or  infinite  name  alone  remains  to  praise.  In 
fact  I  defy  any  one  who  has  the  least  intellectual 
proclivity  to  this  extraordinary  literature,  to  read 
it  with  any  thought  of  the  author,  save  that,  while 
his  veracious  genius  amply  qualified  him  to  do 
justice  to  his  spiritual  chances  so  far  as  they  were 
matters  of  outward  observation,  or  fell  within  the 
range  of  eye  and  ear,  it  left  him  utterly  without 
any  sympathetic  insight,  or  direct  living  intuition, 
of  the  distinctively  divine  and  glorified  humanity 
which  the  truths  in  question  are  designed  to  bring 
about  in  this  ordinary  realm  of  nature;  so  that 
practically  he  remains  always  the  uninspired,  often 
the  mere  tedious  or  prosy,  annalist  of  immense 
changes  occurring  in  the  spiritual  world,  of  which 
he  himself  did  not  discern  the  philosophic  origin, 
and  to  which  he  could  not  assign  therefore  a 
legitimate  scientific  issue. 

I   have   now  vindicated    Swedenbors:   from   the 


328     VINDICA  TION  FROM  SCIENTIFIC  RE  PR  OA  CH. 

scientific  reproach  he  is  sure  to  incur  in  making 
creation  wholly  spiritual  or  living,  so  reducing 
nature  to  a  purely  incidental  position  and  impor- 
tance. In  the  beginning  of  this  chapter,  however, 
I  said  that  the  hostility  of  science  to  this  idea  of 
creation  is  owing  in  part  to  the  somewhat  exag- 
gerated estimate  she  puts  upon  her  own  historic 
place  and  function.  I  shall  say  what  is  needful 
to  be  said  on  this  point  in  another  chapter. 


CHAPTER  XII. 

SCIENCE  IN  RELATION  TO    THE  INTELLECT. 

IN  descanting  in  the  last  chapter  upon  the  unfa- 
vorable judgment  which  men  of  science  form 
of  Swedenborg's  writings,  I  attempted  to  show 
that  it  was  due  in  chief  to  the  place  which  the 
miraculous  element  held  in  them.  But  I  also  said 
that  it  was  due  hi  part  to  the  somewhat  exagger- 
ated estimate  scientific  men  entertain  of  the  role 
of  science  in  our  mental  history. 

Let  me  now  explain  this  latter  proposition. 

Science  is  conceived  of,  by  all  her  professed 
partisans,  as  furnishing  final  and  positive  body  to 
the  mind,  while  theology  and  metaphysics  supply 
it  at  best  with  a  mere  tentative  organization.  And 
as  Swedenborg  exactly  reverses  this  process  of 
mental  growth,  making  philosophy  and  science 
both  strictly  ancillary  to  religion,  merely  scien- 
tific men  conceive  a  prejudice  against  him,  which 
can  only  be  adequately  met  by  proving  his  analy- 
sis of  the  facts  of  the  case  to  be  on  the  whole 
greatly    more    competent    than    their    own.       On 


33 O  SCIENCE  A   REFLECTIVE  INTELLIGENCE. 

what  ground,  then,  is  Swedenborg  plainly  justifi- 
able in  assuming  the  relative  inferiority  of  men's 
scientific  intelligence? 

On  the  ground  of  its  being  a  purely  reflective  or 
reverberatory  intelligence,  not  a  direct  or  living  one. 

I  call  the  scientific  intelligence  in  men  reflect- 
ive, that  is,  reverberatory,  because  it  systematically 
discards  the  witness  of  man's  inward  or  living 
consciousness  in  formulating  its  inductions,  and 
depends  altogether  upon  outward  or  sensible  ob- 
servation. Thus  it  is  not  a  free,  but  rather  a 
servile  intelligence,  acknowledging  in  outward  fact 
the  authority  that  belongs  only  to  inward  and  in- 
visible truth  —  so  leaving  out  what  is  characteristi- 
cally human  or  individual  in  men,  namely,  freedom, 
and  staying  itself  instead  only  upon  what  is  organic 
or  universal,  namely,  force.  In  contrast,  indeed, 
with  the  living  intellect  in  men,  or  what  may  be 
called  their  intuitive  knowledge,  science  thus  han- 
dicapped is  like  a  runner  at  the  Olympian  games, 
who,  instead  of  presenting  himself  for  the  con- 
test stripped,  alert,  and  energetic,  should  choose 
to  appear  with  a  peddler's  pack  on  his  back  ut- 
terly disqualifying  him  for  running  at  all.  Nay, 
more :  science's  pack,  unlike  the  peddler's,  is  not 
self-limited,  but  always  goes  on  toilsomely  rolling 
up.  For  science  docs  not  care  to  harmonize  men's 
particular    experiences    except   with    the   view   of 


A   HIERARCHY  IN  KNOWLEDGE.  331 

attaining  to  a  universal  result;  and  as  there  nec- 
essarily never  can  be  a  universal  result  to  men's 
particular  experience  and  observation  (for  other- 
wise sense  would  swallow  up  consciousness,  or 
force  exclude  freedom),  but  only  an  approxi- 
mately universal  one,  so  the  best  scientific  culture 
can  never  yield  a  knowledge  which  is  absolutely 
true  or  certain,  as  affording  a  divine  sabbath  of 
rest  to  the  mind,  but  only  a  knowledge  which  at 
most  is  probable  —  that  is  to  say,  provable  to 
experts. 

All  this  is  doubtless  true,  but  it  is  by  no  means 
all  the  truth  we  want  to  know,  in  order  to  do 
perfect  justice  to  our  original  question  regarding 
science  and  her  relation  to  the  intellect.  For 
example :  it  is  very  important  to  ask  whence  the 
necessity  for  this  hierarchy  of  knowledges  in  man, 
whereby  one  style  of  knowledge  (called  con- 
science, and  sometimes  faith  or  perception)  is 
invariably  ranked  higher  as  being  relatively  in- 
ward, direct,  or  living;  and  another  style  (called 
science)  as  being  relatively  outward,  reflective,  or 
dead,  is  invariably  ranked  lower.  If  we  at  all 
succeed  in  answering  this  incidental  question 
properly,  I  have  no  doubt  we  shall  be  able  to 
find  a  perfectly  satisfactory  solution  to  our  main 
inquiry. 

The    necessity   for    this    hierarchical    order    of 


332  THE  REASON  WHY. 

knowledges,  or  for  this  divided  mind,  in  man 
inheres  then  all  simply  in  his  being  the  creature 
of  an  infinite  creator.  Now  what  is  it  to  be  the 
creature  of  infinitude  or  omnipotence?  It  is  to 
possess  one's  being  only  in  what  is  most  alien, 
other,  or  opposite  to  one's  self;  even  although 
truth  and  fact  seem  violently  sundered  by  the 
experience.  Of  course  the  creature  is  by  nature 
ignorant  of  his  creator's  spiritual  perfection.  That 
is,  he  can  never  know  his  creator  by  direct  con- 
tact with  him,  because  the  relation  between  them 
is  so  intimate  and  ineffable  as  utterly  to  elude 
sense  by  falling  within  it;  and  truth  which  has 
not  at  least  some  foundation  in  sense  is  fairly 
incomprehensible  to  faith  or  reason :  and  being 
thus  naturally  ignorant  of  his  creator,  it  can  never 
possibly  occur  to  him  what  the  method  of  spir- 
itual creation  is.  For  my  own  part  I  do  not  see 
how  he  can  even  do  so  much  indeed  as  rec- 
ognize the  bare  truth  of  spiritual  creation,  let 
alone  the  method  of  it ;  and  it  is  perfectly  incon- 
testable as  a  general  thing  that  he  feels  every 
obligation  of  truth  in  the  premises  fulfilled  when 
he  has  once  acknowledged  a  material  creation. 
For  he  thinks,  and  cannot  help  thinking,  that  he 
himself  is  and  exists  in  space  and  time ;  and  at- 
tributing thus  these  wretched  conditions  of  finite 
existence  directly  to  his  creator,  he  is  fain  to  sup- 


CREA  TION  GOD  IN  O  UR  FLESH  AND  BONES.     333 

pose  (and  even  makes  a  merit  of  so  doing)  that 
he  himself  and  all  men  are  after  all  a  most  dreary, 
stupid,  pedantic,  uninspired,  and  uninspiring  Jian- 
diwork  of  God,  instead  of  being  an  absolute  or 
literal  reproduction  of  his  love  and  wisdom,  a 
veritable  sincere  coinage  of  his  blood  and  brains. 
And  so  long  as  he  contents  himself  with  this  faint, 
distant,  and  drivelling  echo  of  gospel  truth,  he 
cannot  help  remaining  blind  to  the  eternal  truth 
itself,  which  is  all  summed  up  in  two  words : 
SPIRITUAL  INCARNATION.  According  to  the  gospel 
of  Jesus  Christ,  creation  is  neither  possible  nor 
conceivable  but  as  a  spiritual  divine  incarnation 
in  the  created  natJirc ;  that  is  to  say,  as  a  most 
living,  hearty,  and  spontaneous  indwelling  or  im- 
prisonment of  God  in  the  literal,  abject,  and 
familiar  clay  of  our  flesh  and  bones.  And  how 
shall  any  one  whose  nose  has  been  diligently 
rubbed  for  long  centuries  by  priest  and  king  in 
this  deadly,  most  disgusting  slime  of  things  called 
space  and  time,  ever  lift  himself  so  far  upright  as 
even  to  dream  that  his  own  down-trodden  iden- 
tical manhood  has  been  all  the  while  divinely 
owned  and  authenticated,  and  is  henceforth  to  be 
regarded,  so  to  speak,  as  naturally  flushed  with 
infinitude,  and  the  inmost  innocence  that  belongs 
to  infinitude? 

Very  well,  then.    If  man  be  in  essence  created — ■ 


334      OUJ^  IDENTITY  THE  MAIN  INTEREST. 

that  is  to  say,  if  his  being  inhere  in  what  is  in- 
finitely alien  or  other  to  himself — then  of  course 
the  interests  of  his  identity  must  prove  the  first 
care  of  his  creator,  just  as  the  first  care  of  the  ar- 
chitect in  building  a  house  is  to  provide  it  a  suit- 
able foundation.  If  the  house  be  not  insured  a 
good  foundation  by  the  skill  of  its  architect,  it 
must  soon  fall  to  pieces,  and  had  better  never  have 
been  built.  So  if  the  creature's  formal  identity, 
which  is  his  constitutional  difference  or  projection 
from  God,  were  left  insecure  by  creation ;  if  it 
were  not  in  fact  guaranteed  by  the  whole  force  of 
God's  distinctive  genius,  which  is  all-might  or  infin- 
itude—  creation  must  obviously  prove  unseaworthy, 
and  spring  aleak ;  in  which  case  its  entire  divine 
substance  and  freightage  of  love  and  wisdom  would 
confess  itself  miserably  squandered,  to  say  the  least. 
Indeed  the  creature's  subjective  interests  —  the  in- 
terests of  his  natural  identity,  of  his  constitutional 
difference  or  antagonism  with  his  creator  —  arc  the 
only  real  care  or  preoccupation  that  the  creator 
experiences  in  creation.  On  its  objective  side,  or 
in  the  end,  creation  is  doubtless  secure  enough,  for 
God's  spiritual  omnipotence  guarantees  it;  but  on 
its  moral  or  subjective  side  it  is  totally  insecure, 
since  God  cannot  possibly  control  man  but  in  real 
or  spiritual  freedom,  and  cannot  possibly  say  there- 
fore, before  the  issues  of  his  mere  qtiasi,  or  moral 


CREATION  NO  HOLIDAY   WORK.  335 

and  educative,  freedom  determine  themselves  in 
any  particular  case,  whether  the  subject  of  it  will 
stand  well  or  ill  affected  to  his  great  spiritual  pur- 
pose in  humanity,  which  is  its  deathless  or  spon- 
taneous conjunction  with  infinitude.  In  fact  the 
moral  or  subjective  development  of  the  race  is  the 
one  sole  thing  that  makes  the  cross  a  normal  and 
culminating  symbol  of  our  spiritual  creation,  and 
justifies  it  to  our  reason.  Our  moral  history  is  the 
only  thing  that  goes  to  prove  the  eternal  spiritual 
worth  of  creation,  as  lying  in  the  infinite  cost  of  it 
to  God.  Creation  can  never  be  an  insincere  holi- 
day performance  to  the  heart  of  God.  Its  inward 
or  spiritual  meaning  being  redemption  —  the  ac- 
tual and  eternal  redemption  of  the  creature  from 
his  very  nature  as  a  creature,  in  order  to  his  invest- 
iture with  plenary  divine  good  —  how  can  any  man 
short  of  idiocy,  who  is  familiar  with  the  rank,  in- 
clement obduracy  of  his  own  heart  to  goodness, 
and  the  sneaking,  skulking,  fatal  tendency  of  his 
understanding  to  compromise  with  truth,  fail  to  ac- 
knowledge the  fact  I  allege?  Creation  would  be, 
I  do  not  hesitate  to  say,  a  perfectly  profligate  and 
unprincipled  work  of  God,  unless  it  were  thus  in- 
wardly and  humanly  consecrated;  unless  it  were 
wholly  in  order  to  a  greatly  more  sincere  and  costly 
work  of  redemption,  which  should  practically  prove 
the  creator's  heart  infinitely  unlike  the  creature's 


33^  THE  MIRACLE   OF  NATURE. 

selfish  one,  and  by  that  fact  alone  stamp  the  creator 
infinitely  worthy  of  the  creature's  homage.  To  say 
all  in  a  word :  man's  creation  does  not  consist  at 
all  in  giving  him  spiritual  being  or  substance — for 
being  or  substance,  inasmuch  as  it  is  infinite,  can- 
not be  transferred  from  hand  to  hand  —  but  only 
in  endowing  him  with  NATURAL  (that  is  to  say, 
impersonal)  form,  which  is  the  only  form  fit  to 
house  infinite  substance.  For  when  this  form  is 
once  divinely  constituted  by  the  creature  freely 
renouncing  his  subjectivity,  or,  what  is  the  same 
thing,  acknowledging  it  to  be  purely  phenomenal, 
then  first  the  creature  becomes  invested  with  true 
or  divine-natural  selfhood  —  selfhood  that  renders 
him  at  once  both  really  subjective  and  really  ob- 
jective to  God.  And  being  thus  at  last  formally 
united  with,  and  yet  formally  differentiated  from, 
the  creator,  the  latter's  infinite  and  eternal  being 
determines  itself  to  him  with  the  same  passionate 
love  or  delight  wherewith  the  husband  betakes  him- 
self to  his  bride,  or  the  mother  opens  her  bosom  to 
her  child. 

Let  us  then  feel  ourselves  free  to  conclude  that 
the  total  peculiarity  of  the  creative  nisns  or  eff"ort 
—  the  very  thing  which  stamps  it  essentially  mirac- 
ulous, or  qualifies  it  as  infinite  —  is,  that  it  is 
supremely  intent  upon  giving  its  creature  inexpug- 
nable natural  existence;    because  such  existence 


PERSONAL  IMMORTALITY  INCONCEIVABLE.  337 

alone  furnishes  the  creature  an  adequate  basis  for 
his  subsequent  experience  of  spiritual  life.  Om- 
nipotence itself  would  not  suffice  to  give  you  or 
me  personal  immortality.  No  such  thing  as  per- 
sonal immortality  is  possible  or  conceivable  within 
the  resources  of  infinite  love  and  wisdom ;  for  per- 
sonal immortality  means  a  spiritual  life  of  07ie  s 
own,  and  nothing  can  be  so  essentially  repugnant 
to  spiritual  life  as  the  pretension  to  an  individual 
ownership  of  it.  If  any  one  thing  accordingly  is 
clearer  to  me  than  another,  it  is  this  ;  namely,  that  if 
any  man  in  heaven  or  earth  or  hell  really  possess  his 
own  spirit  —  that  is,  possess  it  in  a  way  so  absolute  or 
unconditional  that  it  willingly  reflects  and  attests  Jiis 
own  distinctive  worth  and  not  the  coninion  wortJi  of 
his  kind — it  can  only  be  because  we  have  hitherto 
mistaken  the  divine  name  or  quality  in  attributing 
to  it  infinitude,  and  that  it  is  after  all  in  very  truth 
a  flagrant  and  flagitious  respecter  of  persons,  unfit 
any  longer  to  claim  or  enjoy  the  homage  of  just 
men,  and  entitled  only  to  their  undying  contempt. 

If  this  seem  a  hard  saying  to  the  reader,  let 
me  try  to  commend  it  to  him  by  means  of  an 
illustration. 

Suppose  then,  my  reader,  that  you  are  a  famous 
statuary  like  Michael  Angelo,  and  that  like  him 
you  have  a  subtile  power  to  impress  your  genius 
on  the  docile,  obedient  marble.     In  that  case  your 


338        ARTISTIC   GENIUS  NOT  CREATIVE. 

work  will  certainly  betray  no  lack  of  individuality. 
Whatever  technical  defects  it  may  have,  or  faults 
of  mechanical  handling,  it  will  never  fail  to  be 
instinct  with  your  own  genius,  and  consequently 
will  never  want  that  expressive  force  which  artists 
call  distinction.,  or  individuality;  so  that  almost 
no  one  familiar  with  your  genius,  or  power  of  ar- 
tistic expression,  will  fail  to  recognize  the  work  as 
characteristic.  Now  your  admirers  would  flatter 
you  egregiously,  if  they  should  call  your  genius 
creative.  They  might  to  be  sure  do  so  in  a  loose, 
figurative  way,  but  nothing  could  be  so  absurd  if 
meant  seriously.  Artistic  power  is  in  reality  the 
precise  opposite  of  infinite  power,  and  no  more 
pregnant  contrast  can  be  imagined,  for  example, 
than  between  it  and  the  power  displayed  in  spiritual 
creation.  It  is  true  we  talk  of  God  as  the  supreme 
artist,  thinking  thereby  to  do  him  honor.  But 
however  polite  and  even  patronizing  our  intention 
may  be,  we  do  wretchedly  scant  justice  to  the 
object  of  it,  whose  characteristic  action,  as  creative, 
is  necessarily  one  of  passion,  humiliation,  or  suffer- 
ing; while  that  of  the  artist  is  exclusively  one  of 
action,  joy,  or  spontaneous  delight.  The  artist  in 
his  work  rejoices  in  difficulties  actually  overcome  ; 
the  creator,  in  his,  passively  submits  himself  to 
the  existence  of  evils  which  can  never  be  over- 
come even  by  infinite  power,  and  from  which  at 


CREATOR'S  GENIUS  NOT  ARTISTIC.        339 

most  he  can  only  give  his  creatures  a  conscious 
release.  And  though  it  may  be  said  doubtless  that 
this  abasement  of  himself  to  evil  on  the  part  of  the 
creator  is  more  than  offset  by  the  joy  of  thus 
delivering  his  creature  from  it,  still  the  joy  of  the 
creator  is  never  artistic  joy.  Notoriously  the  de- 
light of  the  artist  is  to  impress  his  own  distinctive 
genius  on  his  work,  to  reproduce  himself  in  it  as 
much  as  may  be,  to  stamp  it  with  the  lustre  of  his 
own  commanding  individuality ;  and  the  acknowl- 
edged merit  of  the  work  is  to  heighten  the  artist's 
renown,  and  reflect  his  important  little  bow-wow  to 
future  ages. 

But  all  this  would  be  sadly  ?/;z-divine  work. 
In  fact  the  case  with  our  most  inartistic,  or  self- 
ishly inexpert  and  imbecile,  creator  cannot  well 
be  more  antagonistic  to  this.  For  what,  spirit- 
ually, is  the  divine  object  in  creating?  It  is  to 
take  himself  eternally  out  of  his  creatures  sight, 
or  effectually  disappear  in  the  work  of  his  hands. 
Fortunately  for  us,  since  otherwise  we  must  have 
missed  our  only  chance  of  creation,  he  has  no 
semblance  of  private  selfhood,  or  of  interests  pe- 
culiar to  himself.  In  fact  he  has  no  interests  but 
those  of  his  creature,  nor  even  any  the  slightest 
breath  of  existence  save  in  us  his  creatures ;  so 
that  it  is  simply  impossible  to  any  one,  not  pre- 
viously infatuated  with  self-conceit,  to  put  himself 


340  COD'S    WORK  IN  HUMAN  NATURE. 

in  a  moral  relation  to  him,  —  a  relation  of  personal 
merit  or  demerit.  Palpably,  therefore,  since  cre- 
ation has  got  to  become  naturally  constituted,  or 
identified  in  its  own  proper  lineaments,  before  it 
can  thus  serve  to  reflect  or  propagate  the  creative 
name,  so  consequently  the  creative  name  can  only 
aggrandize  itself  spiritually  by  aggrandizing  the 
nature  of  its  creature,  or  endowing  it  with  its  own 
previously  unknown  and  unimaginable  attributes, 
which  are  those  of  life  or  infinitude.  VVe  may 
say  accordingly  that  what  the  creator  character- 
istically does,  unlike  the  artist,  is  diligently  to 
diminish  himself  to  the  level  of  the  created  na-, 
ture,  in  order  thereby  that  the  creature  may  be- 
come elevated  to  the  level  of  the  divine  nature; 
diligently  to  efface  every  suggestion  of  himself  in 
his  work,  whereby  he  could  be  imagined  to  have 
any  interests  at  variance  with  those  of  his  crea- 
ture, indeed  any  being  or  life  apart  from  him.  In 
short,  to  tell  the  whole  story  in  a  word,  the  cre- 
ator is  no  way  bent,  as  we  stupidly  imagine  him 
to  be,  on  making  his  creature  noble,  virtuous,  es- 
timable —  for  such  things,  even  if  they  could  be  out- 
wardly imported  into  the  creature,  would  always 
be  ludicrously  inapposite  to  his  derived,  reflected, 
and  most  beggarly  existence  —  but  on  utterly 
scourging  every  shadow  of  pretension  to  such 
things  out  of  him,  by  endowing  him  with  natural 


OUR  LACK  OF  PRIVATE    WORTH  TO   GOD.  34 1 

selfhood  or  identity  ;  which  is  the  express  antidote 
or  prophylactic  to  spiritual  individuaHty  or  char- 
acter, inasmuch  as  it  implies  in  its  subject  the 
utmost  possible  destitution  of  spiritual  or  living 
qualities,  in  expressing  the  utmost  possible  fellow- 
ship, equality,  or  community  between  him  and  his 
kind. 

Our  natural  identity  then  —  what  we  call  our 
selfhood,  or  community  with  our  kind,  as  alone 
consciously  separating  us  from  God,  or  the  in- 
finite —  is  the  highest  obligation  of  our  creator 
to  us,  because  without  it,  to  begin  with,  we  our- 
selves should  be  forever  incapable  of  spiritual 
reaction  to  our  creator,  and  creation  consequently 
fail  ab  incepto.  But  now  do  I  really  mean  to  allege 
that  this  immense  divine  boon,  proceeding  straight 
out  of  the  divine  heart  to  us,  and  so  fraught  with 
incalculable  spiritual  issues  to  our  nature,  is  yet 
inevitably  fatal  to  our  private  respectability  in 
God's  sight?  I  confess  I  mean  just  this,  nothing 
more  and  nothing  less ;  and  I  should  be  well  con- 
tent if  my  voice  were  loud  enough  to  sound  it 
intelligibly  in  the  ear  of  every  man  of  woman 
born.  I  do  not  see  how  God  can  feel  the  least 
enthusiasm  for  us  his  imbecile  spiritual  creatures, 
any  more  than  the  architect  feels  for  the  bricks 
and  mortar  that  enter  into  the  plan  of  his  house. 
I  do  not  see  how  he  can  take  the  least  pleasure  in 


342  ART  A   DIFFICULT  MISTRESS. 

US  who  boast  ourselves  his  creatures ;  how  he  can 
feel  any  love  or  respect  for  us ;  how  he  can  cher- 
ish any  hope  or  expectation  from  us.  I  do  not 
see,  in  fact,  how  he  can  bring  himself  to  feel  any 
emotion  toward  such  worthless  and  unscrupulous 
pretenders  to  life  but  extreme  compassion. 

To  be  sure  we  call  the  statue  a  creature  of  the 
artist's  hand.  Very  well,  then :  I  ask  you  if  you 
think  the  artist  is  liable  to  the  least  illusion  in 
regard  to  his  statue,  and  like  Pygmalion  regards 
it  as  worthy  of  his  respect  and  tenderness?  As- 
suredly not,  you  will  reply.  Those  who  them- 
selves have  no  plastic  power  may  thus  unduly 
prize  the  artist's  work.  But  the  artist,  if  he  be 
an  artist,  and  not  a  mere  born  traitor  to  art,  is 
never  satisfied  with  his  performance.  Doubtless 
his  self-love  and  self-esteem  may  be  very  much 
fostered  by  our  outside  and  ignorant  appreciation 
of  his  power;  but  rest  assured  that  his  statue 
attracts  no  homage  from  him  to  itself  In  itself 
it  is  not  existent  to  his  consciousness,  being  to 
him  not  so  much  as  a  thing  even  authenticated 
and  owned  by  the  honest  nature  of  things.  What- 
ever exists  in  natiird  rerum  exists  of  course  nat- 
urally, and  hence  really  as  a  thing.  But  what 
exists  in  the  realm  of  art  is  not  real,  as  having  an 
honest  or  inward  substance  behind  it,  but  only 
idealy  as  being  the  mere  echo  or  outcome  of  som.e 


ART  A   DIFFICULT  MISTRESS.  343 

empty  personal  afflatus  —  at  most,  of  some  in- 
substantial personal  aspiration  —  on  the  artist's 
part. 

Thus  the  statue  is  not  even  a  thing,  but  only 
and  at  best  the  appearance  of  a  thing,  cunningly 
wrought  out  of  nature's  substances,  but  wholly 
destitute  itself  of  natural  soul  or  substance,  be- 
cause its  maker  —  or,  as  we  foolishly  say,  its  crea- 
tor—  has  no  soul  or  substance  of  his  own  to  impart 
to  it,  being  himself  a  lifeless  creature  still  unre- 
deemed to  his  own  consciousness  from  death. 
And  hence  I  maintain  that  it  is  impossible  for 
the  artist,  Pygmalion-like,  to  be  so  infatuated  with 
self-conceit  as  really  even  to  dream  of  endowing 
his  statue  with  attributes  of  which  he  himself  has 
as  yet  no  perception. 

But  now  if  all  this  be  true  of  the  artist —  that  he 
is  incapable  of  any  properly  spiritual  joy  in  his 
work  because  he  sees  it  to  be  an  insubstantial 
thing  at  best,  a  mere  shadow  or  image  of  his  own 
shadowy  power,  of  his  own  unreal  self —  much 
more  is  it  true  of  men's  omnipotent  spiritual  creator, 
that  he  is  incapable  of  any  the  least  over-estimate 
in  regard  to  the  work  of  his  hands.  For  though 
his  creature  is  very  different  in  nature  or  kind 
from  that  of  the  artist,  it  is  spiritually,  or  in  itself, 
not  a  whit  superior  to  that,  save  in  so  far  as  con- 
sciousness,  or  seeming  life,  may  be  reckoned  better 


344     NATURE  A  MASK  OF  CREATIVE  POWER. 

than  no  life,  being  in  fact  an  unmistakable  pre- 
sage or  harbinger  of  it.  Apart  from  this  falla- 
cious consciousness,  which  in  truth  is  only  a 
living  death,  man,  looked  at  spiritually  or  in  him- 
self, is  an  infinitely  less  real  existence  than  the 
statue.  For  the  statue  is  separated  from  its 
maker  —  and  so  far  accordingly  is  every  whit  as 
real  as  he  —  by  the  marble  which  gives  it  ma- 
ternity; but  our  great  benign  mother,  nature, 
which  also  seems  to  separate  us  absolutely  from 
our  maker,  is  only  a  seeming  after  all,  because 
"we  intellectually  or  spiritually  have  always  been 
densely  idiotic,  or  have  not  become  in-born  as 
yet  to  our  divine-natural  manhood,  which  infal- 
libly teaches  us  that  nature  has  always  been,  is 
now,  and  forever  will  be,  nothing  but  a  shallow 
transparent  mask  of  infinite  substance,  and  has 
accordingly  no  intrinsic  power  to  separate  us  from 
God  (save  to  our  own  fluffy  j^-^-consciousness), 
but  only  to  conjoin  us  in  immortal  spiritual  nup- 
tials with  him  through  our  race  or  kind. 

We  may  conclude,  then,  that  inasmuch  as  sense 
is  the  ultimate  or  base  of  all  divine  knov/ledge, 
and  inasmuch,  moreover,  as  this  knowledge  is  of 
its  own  nature  indirect  and  negative,  so  the  whole 
field  of  sense  or  visible  existence  requires  to  be 
subjected  to  a  discipline  which  shall  say,  and  say 
infallibly,  what  in  our  knowledge  belongs  to  the 


SCIENCE  A  HANDMAID  TO  THE  INTELLECT.  345 

race  (or  is  universal,  public,  permanent)  and  what 
belongs  to  the  person  (or  is  particular,  private, 
transient),  separating  the  latter  from  the  former 
as  remorselessly  as  the  chaff  is  separated  from 
the  wheat.  Now  this  discipline  is  furnished  by 
science,  which  has  relation  exclusively  to  the 
knowledge  borne  in  upon  us  through  sense,  that  is, 
our  outward  or  reflected  knowledge.  And  science, 
limiting  herself  thus  to  what  is  outward  or  objec- 
tive in  knowledge,  confesses  herself  but  a  hand- 
maiden to  the  intellect,  which  is  the  sphere  of 
man's  direct,  living,  inward,  intuitive  knowledge, 
and  faithfully  enacts  the  role  of  a  handmaiden 
towards  it,  in  always  seconding  its  affirmation  of 
an  exclusively  divine  or  infinite  power  in  nature 
by  the  allegation  of  an  exclusively  universal  or 
natural  power  in  man.  Which  finishes  my  thesis, 
in  proving  that  science,  in  spite  of  all  partisan- 
ship, is  not  a  leading  but  a  most  wholesomely 
subordinate  power  of  the  mind. 


CHAPTER    XIII. 


ADAM  AND  EVE. 


"\TATURE,  or  the  visible  world,  is  the  lifeless 
-^  ^  image,  the  servile  obsequious  shadow,  of  the 
lord,  or  God-man,  Maxinius  Homo  (Perfect  Man) 
as  Swedenborg  names  him  —  at  once  son  of  God 
and  son  of  man,  begotten  of  no  carnal  seed,  and 
born  of  no  carnal  womb ;  on  the  contrary,  con- 
ceived of  the  holy  spirit,  and  brought  forth  in  the 
fulness  of  time  of  the  impeccable,  impersonal, 
Divinely  owned,  eternally  viRGiN-womb  of  human 
nature  or  humanity,  rescued  from  its  temporary 
phenomenal  dimensions,  stripped  of  all  private 
limitations,  restored  to  its  essential  and  universal 
unity  as  the  mother  of  existence,  and  invested  with 
all  Divine  infinitude.  Surely  neither  any  Jewish 
nor  any  Gentile  maiden  could  affect  to  fulfil  so  uni- 
versal, so  divine  a  maternity  (however  she  might 
historically  prefigure  it),  unless  she  were  already 
a  victim  to  an  exaggerated  and  fanatical  self- 
conceit. 

What  I  have  just  said  of  nature,  or  the  visible 


CONTRAST  OF  NATURE  AND  HISTORY.     ZA7 

universe,  is  perfectly  reasonable,  provided  we  look 
upon  it  as  enlivejied  and  illumined  by  history,  which 
alone  redeems  nature  from  chaos,  and  makes  it  a 
veritable  cosmos.  Nature  without  history  to  spir- 
itualize it  is  mere  body  without  soul,  death  without 
life,  form  or  appearance  without  substance  or  real- 
ity to  back  it  and  fill  it  out.  It  is  envisaged  to  us 
in  our  symbolic  Genesis  as  Adam  without  Eve,  a 
purely  unintelligent  and  unintelligible  quantity,  fit 
only  to  give  name  (or  quality)  to  vegetables  and 
animals.  And  as  Adam  and  Eve  between  them 
exactly  symbolize  the  contrasted  fortunes  of  nature 
and  history  —  of  life  or  being,  and  existence  —  we 
shall  do  well  perhaps  to  pause  awhile  upon  the 
familiar  theme,  and  ponder  its  profound  compre- 
hensive wisdom. 

Adam  is  the  rudest,  crudest,  spiritually  least 
modified — that  is,  most  tiniversal — form  of  human 
nature,  representing  the  base,  earthly,  material, 
centrifugal,  identifying  force  in  creation  which  is 
known  as  selfhood,  and  which,  as  producing  divi- 
sion or  disunion  among  those  whom  God  creates 
one,  is  soon  recognized  as  that  essentially  evil,  dia- 
bolic, or  simply  waste  force  in  humanity,  which 
God  and  all  good  men  are  most  insanely  thought 
to  be  bent  —  not  on  utilizing  —  but  on  extirpating. 

Eve,  on  the  other  hand,  celestial  counterpart  of 
this  vulgar  deciduous  Adam,  unlike  him  is  fash- 


34S     NATURE  AND  HISTORY  CONTRASTED. 

ioned  out  of  no  earthly  mould,  but  out  of  his  most 
intimate  human  substance,  as  yet  wholly  unknown 
to,  and  un-divined  by,  his  own  shallow  conscious- 
ness ;  being,  as  Swedenborg  interprets  her,  his 
"vivified  selfhood" — that  is  to  say,  his  regenerate, 
Divine-wdXuvdX,  or  individualizing  soul,  the  dew  of 
God's  ceaseless,  soft,  caressing  presence  in  human 
nature,  full  of  indulgent  clemency  and  tenderness 
towards  the  dull,  somnolent,  inapprehensive,  un- 
conscious clod  with  whom  she  is  associated,  and 
whom  yet  she  is  to  educate  and  inspire  by  exqui- 
site ineffable  divine  arts  into  the  lordship  of  the 
universe,  or  marriage  sympathy  and  union  with 
the  universal  heart  of  man. 

Accordingly  the  very  first  service  that  Eve  is 
reported  as  attempting  towards  Adam,  is  to  leaven 
his  sodden  sensuous  clay  with  a  wholesome  and 
timely  recognition  of  the  subtle  death  which  ani- 
mates and  is  his  conscious  life.  Our  progenitor 
—  innocent  earthling  that  he  is !  —  has  as  yet  no 
idea  of  life  but  to  live  in  a  garden  richly  stored  to 
supply  and  gratify  every  sense  ;  and  death  of  course 
can  only  mean  to  him  the  loss  of  this  happy  sen- 
suous life.  So  that  when  he  hears  a  divine  voice 
telling  him  that  he  may  eat  freely,  or  at  his  own 
pleasure,  of  all  the  trees  of  the  garden,  while  there 
is  one  tree,  called  the  tree  of  the  knowledge  of  good 
and  evil,  which  he  cannot  eat  of  freely  —  that  is,  at 


ADAM'S  FIRST  LESSON.  349 

the  impulse  of  his  carnal  appetite,  but  only  at  the 
instance  of  his  soul,  or  the  Lord's  life  within  him, 
that  is,  with  sincere  j^^-loathing,  contrition,  and  suf- 
fering—  the  voice  has  evidently  an  altogether  hid- 
den meaning,  only  to  be  afterward  revealed  by  Eve  ; 
for  until  Eve  comes  he  is  demonstrably  soulless, 
remaining  a  mere  unsocial  animal  consciousness, 
or  " alone"  as  the  sacred  text  phrases  it.  But  when 
Eve  arrives,  and  discovers  with  the  finer  instinct  of 
the  soul  (that  is,  his  covert  divine  nature)  that  the 
fruit  of  this  metaphysical  tree  is  not  only  good  for 
food  and  agreeable  to  the  sense,  but  altogether  de- 
sirable to  make  one  wise  like  God  (for  God,  in 
the  infancy  or  inexperience  of  the  human  soul,  is 
inevitably  conceived  of  under  personal  conditions, 
or  as  the  most  finite  of  beings),  she  forthwith  gives 
her  docile  nursling  his  first  lesson  in  true  manhood, 
by  determining  him  to  eat  of  it  though  death  and 
hell  be  in  the  eating. 

Now  the  entire  purpose  of  this  subtle  transcend- 
ent story  (which  in  a  few  careless  strokes  paints 
the  tenderest  divine  dawn  of  our  distinctively 
human  life  and  all  its  stupendous,  unimaginable 
historic  issues)  has  been,  as  I  conceive,  to  bottle 
up  the  secret  of  man's  spiritual  creation  from  his 
own  knowledge,  until  such  time  as  in  the  foresight 
and  providence  of  God  man,  enlightened  by  the  in- 
stinct of  his  natural  or  race  freedom,  might  him- 


350  MAN'S  FREE-WILL 

self  be  safely  intrusted  with  it,  to  apply  it  to  the 
great  universal  ends  of  human  life,  and  no  longer 
to  the  vain,  fantastic  interests  and  issues  of  a  dis- 
eased and  exorbitant  personal  consciousness. 

I  repeat  what  I  have  said,  "  the  instinct  of  his 
natural  or  race  freedom ;  "  for  this  instinct  is  the 
only  valid  claim  which  any  man  has  to  private  or 
personal  freedom.  My  reader,  doubtless,  has  often 
been  tired  to  death  of  hearing  this  question  of 
man's  private  freedom  discussed  and  debated  — 
*'  freedom  of  the  will  "  as  it  is  called  —  without 
either  disputant  being  able  to  decide  whether  the 
freedom  in  question  be  absolute,  arguing  the  crea- 
ture to  be  independent,  or  simply  a  freedom  con- 
ditioned upon  reason.  Some  of  the  disputants 
contend  that  a  qualified  freedom  is  not  and  can- 
not be  real  freedom ;  while  others  hold  that  an 
absolute  or  unconditioned  freedom  is  far  too  real, 
amounting  in  fact  to  license,  which  is  freedom  with 
its  back  broken,  and  its  head  consequently  trailing 
in  the  dust.  But  all  alike  agree,  it  is  clear,  that 
the  freedom  demanded  for  man  is  bound  to  be  a 
very  real  one,  inasmuch  as  an  unreal  freedom  would 
manifestly  defeat  the  needs  of  his  existing  morality. 
Morality  is  everywhere  thouglit  to  be  absolute  in 
the  requisitions  it  makes  upon  its  subjects ;  and 
an  absolute  morality  to  be  entitled  to  any  respect 
ought  to  exact  in  its  votaries  a  complete  subser- 


IS  NOT  A BSOL UTE.  351 

vience  to  itself,  or  freedom  from  outside  responsi- 
bility. So  that  the  partisans  of  a  qualified  freedom, 
a  freedom  qualified  by  rationality,  hold  their  own 
at  this  day  more  by  devout  feeling  than  by  logic. 
But  the  controversy,  it  is  fair  to  say,  is  no  longer 
purely  scholastic  as  it  was  in  old  times,  for  popular 
passion  has  become  enlisted  in  it  and  is  fast  ren- 
dering it  ominously  practical  —  to  such  an  extent, 
indeed,  that  I  doubt  not  if  universal  suffrage  could 
some  way  be  appealed  to  to  settle  it,  it  would  soon 
be  solved  in  the  interest  of  those  who  hold  to  a 
self-determining  or  strictly  atheistic  power  in  the 
will.  The  popular  mind  indeed  —  to  judge  of  it 
by  the  very  unhandsome  popular  lingo  of  many  of 
those  who  profess  to  speak  for  it  —  looks  upon 
human  freedom  as  substantially  a  diabolic  posses- 
sion ;  that  is,  "  as  a  right  or  power  in  every  man  to 
do  as  he  damn  pleases,"  so  long  as  the  prison  and 
the  scaffold  do  not  say  him  nay  —  the  ''damn''  here 
being  evidently  used  to  signalize  the  transition- 
point  where  will  becomes  transmuted  into  wilful- 
ness, and  forfeits  its  old  aristocratic  cleanliness  to 
get  down  and  wallow  in  democratic  mud. 

But  the  whole  tiresome  controversy,  settle  it  as 
we  choose,  is  philosophically  preposterous,  being 
logically  void  ab  initio.  There  is  not  and  cannot 
be  a  fibre  of  real  or  essential  freedom  in  man,*  be- 
cause he  is  essentially  and  immutably  a  creature, 


352    CREATIVE  EXISTENCE  NOT  ABSOLUTE. 

deriving  all  his  living  or  bei}ig  power  from  another 
than  himself  every  moment,  and  a  fortiori  of  course 
all  his  faculty  of  affection,  thought,  and  action. 
The  capital  mistake  accordingly  which  our  philos- 
ophers make  in  point  of  philosophy — and  which 
our  popular  leaders  make  no  less,  who  have  them- 
selves been  philosophically  misled  by  the  former 
—  is  that  they  have  never  been  willing  to  accept 
a  quasi  or  seeming  freedom  both  as  the  only  one 
congruous  with  the  conditions  of  a  creature,  and 
the  only  one  at  all  in  the  power  of  the  creator  to 
bestow.  For  the  creator  of  man  is  obviously  the 
least  absolute  of  beings,  as  even  this  phenomenal 
freedom  which  he  is  restricted  to  bestowing  upon 
his  creature  testifies.  That  is  to  say,  he  has  no 
absolute  existence  of  his  own  to  confer  upon  his 
creature,  because  his  own  existence  is  altogether 
conditioned  upon  that  of  his  creature;  and  if  he 
have  no  absolute  existence  to  bestow,  he  has  d 
fortiori  no  absolute  power  or  freedom.  Creator 
exists  by  creature  alone,  as  creature  at  first  is 
by  creator  alone.  There  is  consequently  no 
existence  so  essentially  burdensome  —  so  per- 
petually degraded  and  tarnished  —  as  that  of  the 
creator,  complicated  as  it  necessarily  is  imth  all  our 
natural  infirmity ;  and  nothing  short  of  his  own 
infinitude  or  omnipotence  accounts  for  his  not 
succumbing  every  moment  to  the  dismal,  invet- 


GOD  HAS  NO  ARBITRARY  POWER.         533 

erate  weight  of  that  infirmity.  The  demonstrative 
powerlessness  of  Jesus  Christ  in  the  hands  of  his 
enemies  was  a  most  feeble  because  generahzed 
type  of  this  truth ;  and  if  we  could  only  forbear 
our  cringing,  sickening,  and  idolatrous  adulation  of 
his  futile  person  long  enough  to  catch  the  divine 
spirit  he  was  of,  we  should  probably  soon  find  out 
that  we  ourselves  are  spiritually  the  very  head  and 
front  of  the  devout  rabble  that  everywhere  and  at 
all  times  inexorably  thirsts  for  his  blood. 

It  is  true,  no  doubt,  that  we  are  in  the  habit  of 
imputing  a  good  degree  of  freedom  or  power  "  to 
do  as  they  please "  to  a  certain  loathsome  and 
disreputable  mob  or  vermin  of  persons  among  our- 
selves. But  even  in  the  happiest  individual  exam- 
ples of  this  insane  and  fraudulent  freedom,  it  is 
seen  to  be  hopelessly  abridged  —  rendered  nought, 
indeed  —  by  the  determined  opposition  of  all  man- 
kind to  it,  allowing  it  no  manner  of  practical  tol- 
erance. At  any  rate,  however,  no  such  will-power 
or  freedom  belongs  to  God  most  high.  He  of  all 
beings  is  the  least  free,  has  the  least  power,  to  act 
arbitrarily,  or  follow  his  own  caprice :  in  the  first 
place,  because  his  love  being  creative  or  life- 
giving,  is  so  essentially  free  of  subjective  bias  — 
is,  in  other  words,  so  infinitely  objective  —  as  logi- 
cally to  identify  him  not  with  himself,  but  exclu- 
sively with  his  creature ;   and  in  the  second  place, 

23 


354    SUCH  POWER    UNDIVINE   OR  DIABOLIC. 

because  this  absence  of  self-love  in  him,  this  desti~ 
tution  of  subjective  consciousness,  makes  humility 
the  very  quintessence  of  his  genius,  nature,  or 
spiritual  quality,  and  so  stamps  wilfulness  or  self- 
assertion  sheerly  diabolic,  that  is,  essentially  iin- 
divine.^     And  if  the  creative  will  simply  because  it 

1  A  biographer  of  the  late  Rev.  Dr.  Lyman  Beecher  relates  of 
nim  that,  being  interrupted  in  one  of  his  lectures  upon  atheism  by 
a  pupil  who  wanted  to  know  how  he  would  have  him  meet  a  man 
who  professed  polytheism,  or  too  much  deity,  he  replied  to  the 
inquirer  with  great  warmth :  "  Say  to  the  man  that  it  is  all  the 
worse  for  him  if  there  be  more  than  one  deity  ;  for  if  one  deity  is 
able  to  play  the  devil  with  our  persons,  making  them  bear  insuf- 
ferable torments,  a  multitude  of  deities  will  be  sure  to  add  tenfold, 
if  that  be  possible,  to  his  anguish."  I  don't  pretend  to  remember 
or  reproduce  the  exact  literal  phraseology  of  this  brutal  theological 
counsel,  but  I  am  at  least  true  to  its  spirit.  Now  Dr.  B.  was  con- 
fessedly a  rank  and  florid  sectarian  religionist ;  so  that  you  may 
see  from  this  anecdote  that  not  only  the  venerable  defunct  himself, 
but  the  whole  ecclesiastical  squad  he  stands  for,  not  in  words,  but 
in  deed  and  in  truth,  spiritually  acknowledge  and  worship  in  God 
the  supreme  devil  of  the  universe.  The  whirlwind,  it  seems  to  me, 
would  be  kindly  and  considerate  in  comparison  with  this  profligate 
New  England  theology.  I  don't  ascribe  the  least  of  its  profligacy 
to  Dr.  Beecher  personally,  of  course,  nor  to  any  of  his  sectarian 
adjuncts  or  allies,  who  all  doubtless  in  their  chance  jjersonal  rela- 
tions are  estimable  men  enough.  But  no  conventional  respect 
which  is  otherwise  due  to  the  trumpery  persons  who  are  in  love 
with  the  base  letter  of  our  religion,  and  endeavor  to  fasten  it  upon 
men's  unwilling  necks,  should  blind  us  for  a  moment  to  the  utterly 
juiceless,  inclement,  and  inhuman  quality  of  that  letter.  Person- 
ally, of  course,  one  man  is  just  as  amiable  and  innocent  in  God's 
sight  as  another ;  but  the  divine  being  must  be  so  cordially  sick 
and  tired  by  this  time  of  our  heartless,  unscrupulous  theologians, 
that  any  frankly  unsanctified  or  vagabond  aspirant  for  his  favor 
can  hardly  help  being  infinitely  sweet  to  him  in  the  contrast. 


MEANING   OF  ADAMIC  MYTH.  355 

is  spiritually  creative,  and  therefore  naturally  con- 
stitutive of  others,  is  not  absolutely  free,  but  on  the 
contrary  invariably  conditions  itself  upon  the  crea- 
ture's power  of  reaction  toward  it,  why,  then,  man- 
ifestly the  pretence  of  any  such  freedom  in  man  is 
to  the  last  degree  preposterous  and  illusory. 

Now,  it  is  this  great  truth  which  the  Adamic 
myth  seems  expressly  designed  to  vindicate.  For 
surely,  if  our  great  federal  head  and  representative, 
when  placed  in  the  garden  of  Eden,  had  any  lim- 
itary conscience  toward  God,  it  stood  in  these 
remarkable  words :  Of  the  tree  of  knowledge  of 
good  and  evil  thou  shalt  not  eat ;  for  in  the  day  thou 
eatest  thereof  tJiou  shalt  surely  die.  And  yet  Eve, 
his  divinely  invented  and  commissioned  helpmeet, 
could  evidently  do  him  no  such  ready  and  signal 
service  as  to  cause  him  incontinently  to  drain  this 
intimate  divine  cup  of  death  to  the  dregs  !  Now 
what  is  the  philosophic  meaning  of  this  mystical 
and  pregnant  divine  romance? 

Any  one  with  half  an  eye  can  see,  in  the  first 
place,  that  the  death  poor  Adam  encountered  from 
his  love  to  Eve  was  not  in  the  least  physical,  save 
in  so  far  as  it  implied  a  change  in  his  experience, 
by  which  outward  pleasure,  the  pleasures  of  sense, 
become  altogether  secondary  and  subservient  to 
inward  and  more  refined  delights.  In  short,  it  was 
an  altogether  living  or  inward  death  that  Adam 


356  ADAM'S  FALL  A   SPLRLTUAL  RISE. 

incurred,  a  death  in  his  own  throbbing  bosom ; 
death  to  the  longer  predominance  in  his  nature  of 
its  mere  passive  sensual  instincts,  which  are  far  too 
exclusively  animal  (or  paradisiac  and  voluptuous) 
to  characterize  God's  true  spiritual  creature  and 
fellow. 

And  then  again,  in  the  second  place,  any  one 
with  half  an  eye  can  see,  by  putting  together  the 
two  symbolic  facts  I  have  cited  from  the  scripture 
narration,  that  "Adam's  fall,"  as  it  is  called,  was  not 
that  stupid  lapse  from  the  divine  favor  which  it  is 
vulgarly  reputed  to  have  been,  but  an  actual  rise 
to  the  normal  human  level  out  of  sheer  unrelieved 
brutality.  The  "  normal  human  level"  becomes 
fully  constituted  whenever  and  wherever  a  man's 
outward  life  freely  or  spontaneously  yields  to  his 
inward  one ;  that  is,  whenever  self-love  in  his 
bosom  spontaneously  gives  priority  to  charity  or 
neighborly  love.  Adam,  of  course,  is  not  repre- 
sented as  at  all  constituting  this  divine  style  of 
manhood.  But  he  is  at  least  represented  as  pro- 
spectively compassing  that  destiny  for  himself  or 
his  descendants  by  following  Eve's  happy  example 
in  eating  of  the  tree ;  for  Eve  herself  had  eaten  of 
it  with  manifest  impunity,  thus  symbolically  re- 
nouncing every  outside  paradisiac  pleasure,  every 
mere  pleasure  of  sense,  which  stood  in  the  way  of 
his  deeper,  more  intimate  delight  in  a  close,  indis- 


SENSE    THE    TRUE  MIRACLE.  257 

soluble  union  with  her  who  was  the  very  hfe  or 
soul   of  his  existence.     We   certainly  may,   if  we 
like,  continue  to  vote  this  manly  act  of  Adam  dis- 
astrous ;  for  our  beggarly,  blind  understanding  in 
divine  things,  informed  by  an  utterly  dead  church, 
continues,  and  always  will  continue,  animal  like,  to 
judge  of  spiritual  realities  by  sight  and  smell,  or 
methods  of  sense.     But  to  the  deathless,  immortal 
part  of  man  (here  personated  by  Eve,  getting  her 
first  taste  of  the  innocent,  enlivening  fascinations  of 
sense,  personated  by  t/ie  ser-pait)  it  is  anything  but 
disastrous.     It  is  an  every  way  upward  step  indeed, 
pregnant  with  beatific  consequences.    For  the  soul, 
you  must  remember,  attains  to  consciousness  of  its 
distinctive   life   or   freedom,  not   by   shirking   the 
puny  death  which  sense  entails  upon  all  its  sub- 
jects, but  by  frankly  accepting  it  as  the  condition 
of  one's  participation  in  a  higher  divine  life.     And 
accordingly  every  son    of   Adam  —  every   one    at 
least  who  is  happy  enough  to  feel  the  inspiration 
of  a  soul,  or  daughter  of  Eve,  within  him  —  wel- 
comes this  puny,  silly  death,  which  inwardly  is  his 
proper  consciousness,  as  his  inevitable  and  uncon- 
scious   resurrection    to  life.      For    sense    furnishes 
that  miraculous,  ever-living,    impersonal    plane  of 
tdtimates,  or  contact  of  extremes  (so  largely  in- 
sisted   upon   by   Swedenborg   as   the   philosophic 
turning-point  of  creation),  in  which  men  attain  to 


358     CONSCIOUSNESS  AN  INLET  TO  ALL  DUPERY. 

seeming  or  fallacious  freedom,  to  natural  or  quasi 
selfhood,  and  so  present  a  basis  on  which  all  the 
possibilities  of  God's  infinitude  or  omnipotence  in 
their  spiritual  creation  easily  and  untiringly  rest 
and  pivot. 

It  is  just  here,  accordingly,  in  this  enchanted, 
miraculous  realm  of  sense  —  wholly  infinite  or 
wholly  finite,  as  you  happen  to  view  it  from  above 
or  from  below  —  that  our  witless  theologians  and 
philosophers  pick  up  their  crazy  doctrine  of  human 
freedom  as  a  power  in  every  man  to  do  as  lie  wills, 
without  deference  to  any  other  will,  without  defer- 
ence indeed  to  anything  but  the  unforeclosed 
mortgage  which  those  two  disgusting  institutions, 
namely,  the  diuigeon  and  the  scaffold,  now  hold 
upon  his  action  by  virtue  of  their  being  the  sole 
hereditary  buttress  and  sanction  of  our  existing 
unclean  civilization.  For  if  God  be  a  priori  able 
to  afford  men  such  quasi  or  simulated  projection 
from  himself  as  amounts  to  conscious  life  in  them 
—  that  is,  to  natural  selfhood  or  identity  —  they 
themselves  are  at  liberty  to  be  duped  by  this  divine 
conp  de  main  as  much  as  they  please,  provided 
finally  they  do  not  deny  his  superior  liberty  to 
confer  upon  men  —  nfider  cover  of  this  specious 
natural  idoitity  —  what  miraculous  spiritual  indi- 
viduality he  will. 

Here,  moreover — though   Eve   herself,   doubt- 


EVE  FIRST  IN  TRANSGRESSION.  359 

less,  as  some  dull  literalist  has  remarked  and  many 
a  duller  one  has  repeated  after  him,  was  "  first  in 
transgression  "  —  let  us  frankly  consider  what  the 
poor  woman's  "  transgression  "  really  amounted  to 
after  all.  It  amounts  to  just  this,  nothing  more : 
the  awakening  of  an  innocent,  inexperienced  heart 
and  mind  to  self-consciousness,  through  the  opera- 
tion of  a  fitting  motive,  namely,  the  recognition  of 
his  soul,  or  spiritual  nature ;  for  this  is  what  Eve 
signifies  in  reference  to  Adam.  But  this  is  a  "  trans- 
gression "  which  every  parent  in  the  land  is  guilty 
of  every  day  toward  his  own  children,  without  ever 
having  half  so  good  an  excuse  as  Eve  had.  For 
that  adventurous  mother,  when  she  persuaded  her 
imbecile,  prosaic,  unadventurous  spouse  out  of 
dawning,  passionate,  soul-love  to  her,  into  flat  re- 
bellion against  God,  considered  as  the  power  of  an 
outward  life  in  men,  was  really  or  spiritually  acting 
in  the  interests  of  the  lord,  or  universal  man,  and 
of  his  exclusive  kingdom  on  earth.  The  concep- 
tion of  God  as  an  outside  power  in  human  life,  sus- 
taining good  and  evil  relations  to  man,  is  inevitable 
to  the  infancy  of  the  intellect,  when  the  heart  is  in 
abeyance  to  the  head,  and  the  head  itself  in  abey- 
ance to  sense.  But  this  conception  of  God  as  an 
outside  power  in  nature  and  man,  when  it  is  dog- 
matically confirmed  by  men's  intelligence,  becomes 
an  absolute  hell  to  the  human  conscience,  and  is 


3  60     CHRIS  T  FUXC  TIONALL  Y  REPRESENTA  TIVE. 

indeed  the  only  hell  which  the  gospel  aims  to  de- 
liver men  from.  Every  one,  accordingly,  who  feels 
the  spirit  of  Christ  in  his  members  will  wage  inter- 
necine war  with  it.  The  conflict  of  good  and  evil 
is  far  too  dire  a  burden  for  any  individual  shoulders 
to  bear;  and  though  Christ  bore  it,  and  bore  it  all 
alone  so  far  as  any  finite  help  was  concerned,  yet 
we  must  always  remember  that  Christ  was,  fjinc- 
tionally,  a  purely  representative  person,  not  a  real 
one,  and  that  everything  he  said  or  did,  conse- 
quently, in  the  days  of  his  flesh,  was  said  or  done 
in  behalf  of  a  strictly  representative  kingdom  of 
God  on  earth,  not  in  the  least  a  real  kingdom. 
I  am  as  free  as  any  one  could  possibly  desire  me 
to  be  to  admit  that  Christ  was  very  much  more 
than  a  real  person  (since  a  real  person  exists  only 
to  consciousness) ;  still  I  hold  that  he  was  at  least 
not  that,  for  we  cannot  really  believe  in  any  per- 
sonal subject  of  our  nature  being  spiritually —  that 
is,  super-naturaWy — conceived  and  begotten.  If 
indeed  he  /lad  been  a  real  and  not  a  purely  repre- 
sentative person,  he  would  have  been  totally  dis- 
qualified for  the  messiahship ;  which  was  to  bring 
to  its  close  a  wholly  figurative  and  temporary  king- 
dom of  God  on  the  earth —  a  kingdom  based  upon 
persons — and  so  inaugurate  a  substantial  or  eter- 
nal kingdom  based  upon  infinite  or  impersonal 
goodness  and  truth.     For  in   the  first  place  if  he 


ADAM'S  HISTORIC  CHANGES.  361 

had  been  a  real  person,  then  in  the  conflict  which 
took  place  between  him  and  his  people,  the  God 
of  his  fathers  would  have  been  bound  in  honor  to 
sustain  him  personally  against  the  Jews,  instead  of 
allowing  him  to  fall  a  victim  to  their  cruel  rage. 
And  in  the  second  place,  had  he  been  a  real  per- 
son, he  would  have  been  totally  unfit  to  found  in 
his  blood  that  true,  everlasting,  substantial  king- 
dom of  God  wherein  alone  dwelleth  righteousness ; 
for  this  kingdom  is  utterly  without  respect  of  per- 
sons, every  one  included  in  it  being  baptized  in 
mnoceiice — that  is,  having  washed  himself  white 
in  the  blood  of  the  lamb,  from  the  defiling  taint 
of  personality,  whether  good  or  evil. 

But  I  am  getting  away  from  Adam,  whose  change 
from  a  horticultural  consciousnesss  to  an  agricul- 
tural one  I  meant  only  to  describe  as  altogether 
due,  not  by  any  means  to  any  absurd  change  on 
God's  part  toward  him,  but  to  a  strictly  consti- 
tutional incident  of  his  experience,  which  was  the 
discovery  that  he  had  a  soul,  and  was  bound  to 
love  and  honor  and  obey  it  at  whatever  cost  to  his 
outward  prosperity,  even  though  God  himself,  con- 
sidered as  an  outward  power,  should  menace  him 
with  death  for  so  doing.  For  the  soul  of  man 
(which  is  nothing  but  his  invisible,  intangible,  spir- 
itual relations  to  his  race)  will  always  make  death 
the  proper  meed   of  the  finite    consciousness,   as 


-362       THE  RACE    THE  REAL  MAN. 

existing  by  the  hallucination  of  an  outward  or  ab- 
solute good  and  evil  in  life ;  and  it  bids  every  one 
committed  to  the  maddening  anxieties  and  per- 
plexities of  such  a  consciousness  to  consent  ever 
after  to  renounce  his  easy-going  paradise,  and  be 
content  to  live  laborious  days.  But  the  race-stom- 
ach (of  which  the  soul  is  the  solitary  witness  or 
organ)  is  not  so  squeamish  as  the  individual  one ; 
for  the  race-stomach  enfolds  or  comprehends  in 
its  own  indefinite,  indiscriminate  unity  all  our  petty 
personal  stomachs,  good  and  evil  alike  (there  being 
no  good  but  God  which  is  infinite  or  impersonal), 
and  therefore  turns  our  finite  or  personal  good  in- 
to unmixed  evil.  In  other  words,  the  race  alone 
is  real  man,  and  invariably  sets  the  tune,  therefore, 
for  us  paltry,  personal,  or  phenomenal  men  to 
march  to.  And  consequently  we  turn  out  good 
or  evil  persons  —  that  is  to  say,  even  phenomenally 
good  or  evil  men — just  as  we  consent  or  refuse  to 
keep  step  with  the  race's  music. 

It  is  nothing  less  than  farcical  to  think  of  finding 
the  ground  of  morality  outside  the  necessities  of 
human  nature  or  the  race  —  for  example,  in  some 
faticied  absolute  will  of  God,  considered  as  acting 
irrespectively  of  our  race  or  nature.  This  is  to  make 
God  a  wretched,  contemptible  pedant  or  pettifog- 
ger, unworthy  of  any  refined  or  purified  homage. 
If  God  knows  any  warfare  or  difference  of  good 


TEST  OF  DIVINE  NAME.  363 

and  evil  in  his  own  proper  bosom  —  if  he  recog- 
nizes any  evil  either  private  or  public  which  is  not 
reflected  to  his  sympathetic,  compassionate  eye 
exclusively  from  the  groaning,  infirm,  imperfect 
consciousness  of  his  creatures  —  then  clearly  he  is 
not  the  infinite  God  I  have  been  taught  to  acknowl- 
edge him,  nor  will  I  evermore  be  found,  so  long 
as  I  retain  my  reason,  wasting  the  sincere  incense 
of  my  worship  upon  his  hollow  deceitful  altars. 
Indeed,  if  God  have  any  proper  life  of  his  own, 
unshared  by  and  incommunicable  to  his  crea- 
tures—  if  he  be  at  all  a  person,  in  short,  with  time 
and  space  dimensions  at  all  different  from  my 
own,  and  a  possible  consciousness  of  dispropor- 
tion therefore  to  the  meanest  creature  he  has 
made  —  then  I  with  all  my  heart  withhold  my  hom- 
age from  him  as  a  false  and  sanguinary  pretender 
to  his  holy  and  adorable  name,  and  name  him 
instead,  with  a  full  purpose  of  insult  and  outrage, 
after  some  popular  deity — some  abominable,  las- 
civious, and  blood-stained  deity  of  the  nations, 
such  as  Beelzebub  or  Juggernaut,  In  short,  my 
reader,  if  human  nature,  the  human  race,  mankind, 
or  humanity,  be  not  spiritually  the  only  true  name 
of  God,  exhausting  the  conception,  then  I  at  least 
do  not  know  the  true  name  of  God,  and  certainly 
shall  never  care  to  know  it.  For  in  that  case  no 
man  of  woman  born  could  ever  spiritually  discern 


364  TEST  OF  DIVINE  NAME. 

any  difference  between  good  and  evil;  and  you 
and  I  might  habitually  —  by  way  of  keeping  our- 
selves in  the  existing  fashion  —  take  away  any  man's 
good  name,  rob  him  of  his  livelihood,  defile  his 
wife's  affection  for  him,  or  deprive  him  even  of  life 
at  our  sovereign  pleasure,  and  without  the  least 
compromise  to  our  loathsome  and  hideous  persons 
before  God,  considered  himself  as  an  outside  per- 
son to  humanity.  And  now  I  think  you  will  have 
no  difficulty  in  understanding  what  I  mean  when  I 
say,  that  good  (or  heaven)  is  what  it  immutably 
is,  and  evil  (or  hell)  what  it  immutably  is,  simply 
because  the  human  race,  or  human  nature,  is  prop- 
erly itself  that  actual  spiritual  outcome  or  product 
of  creative  omnipotence  or  infinitude  which  we 
ourselves  —  ghastly  dwarfs  and  unlovely  carica- 
tures of  humanity  that  we  are !  —  have  all  these 
dismal  centuries  been  vainly  and  insanely  pretend- 
ing to  be. 

Heaven,  remember,  is  simply  the  harvested  spir- 
itual product  of  our  natural  or  associated  life  on 
the  earth,  of  our  unitary  or  race  consciousness,  as 
hell  is  its  unharvested  or  waste  product.  They  do 
not  either  of  them  in  any  degree  express  the  real 
or  spiritual  and  individual  life  of  men,  for  no  such 
life  as  this  has  ever  been  known  to  men,  nor  ever 
will  be  known,  so  long  as  they  believe  in  the  ab- 
soluteness of  nature,  and  the  consequent  rightful 


HEAVEN  AND  HELL  INCONVERTIBLE.     365 

regime  of  civilization  —  though  to  be  sure  our  poor 
debauched  church  and  our  weak  decrepit  state  have 
ahvays  Hved  and  thriven  by  making  men  beheve 
that  bottomless  fiction.  That  it  is  a  fiction  is  am- 
ply clear  to  the  readers  of  Swedenborg's  books, 
which  invariably  paint  angel  and  devil,  or  heaven 
and  hell,  as  exactly  the  same  in  objective  regards, 
and  only  differenced  in  subjective  regards  by  the 
lord,  as  he  phrases  it;  meaning  thereby  not  any 
stupid  person,  but  the  interests  of  God's  spiritual 
kingdom  on  earth.  Now,  as  I  understand  Sweden- 
borg,  heaven  is  inconvertibly  heaven  —  that  is  to 
say,  a  divinely  beautiful,  benignant,  and  powerful 
spiritual  man  —  only  because  the  persons  who  com- 
pose it  are  used  to  acknowledge  God  only  in  natural 
or  associated  human  form,  and  not  in  any  ideal  spir- 
itual or  personal  form  which  they  might  sensuously 
think  more  consonant  with  his  perfection,  and 
hence  love  one  another  with  cordial  or  unaffected 
religious  truth;  and  hell,  on  the  other  hand,  is 
inconvertibly  what  it  is  —  namely,  a  divided,  dis- 
torted, disunited,  and  therefore  an  unwholesome, 
unsightly,  and  powerless,  spiritual  man  —  only 
because  its  subjects  spiritually  acknowledge  God, 
not  in  universal  human  form,  but  each  in  his  own 
or  some  other  distinctive  person,  and  therefore  hate 
one  another  with  a  hearty  religious  hatred. 

In  fact,  heaven  and  hell  in  Swedenborg's  mas- 


266  THEIR    VITAL  INTEREST  OVER. 

terly  handling  of  them  (and  I  surely  need  not  say 
to  any  one  acquainted  with  his  books  that  his  esti- 
mate of  these  things,  fresh,  original,  fearless,  guile- 
less as  it  is  to  the  utmost  most  audacious  bounds 
of  veracity,  turns  every  similar  exploit  of  human 
wit  into  silly  child's  play,  or  puling,  nauseating 
sentimental  guess-work)  are  both  alike  nothing 
but  logical,  ordinary,  and  inevitable  spiritual  inci- 
dents of  our  natural  or  race  evolution ;  ^  which,  as 
it  has  two  inconvertible  factors,  creator  and  crea- 
ture, God  and  man,  infinite  and  finite,  good  and 
evil,  free  and  bond,  exacts  to  itself  a  double  or 
divided  development  —  one  (heaven)  tending  «/- 
wardzxidi  appropriate  to  the  major  factor,  the  other 
(hell)  tending  downward  and  appropriate  to  the 
minor  factor,  but  both  bound  perfectly  to  coalesce 
in  that  final  unitary  display  of  omnipotent  good- 
ness and  wisdom  known  as  human  SOCIETY,  or  the 
Lord's  KINGDOM  UPON  EARTH.  Heaven  and  hell 
accordingly  have  no  legitimate  interest  to  us  hence- 

'  I  may  say,  moreover,  most  benignant  incidents  of  it ;  for  if  it 
can  be  reasonably  shown  (as  Swedenborg  has  done)  that  the  un- 
regenerate  or  evil  and  hellish  element  in  our  nature,  even  when 
out  of  divine  order,  or  when  not  spontaneously  subject  to  the 
regenerate  element,  is  yet  not  only  no  less  vigorous  than  the  latter, 
but  on  the  contrary  much  more  vigorous,  sagacious,  and  produc- 
tive of  eminent  earthly  uses,  what  bounds  can  our  imagination  set 
to  the  hopes  that  arc  bred  of  it,  when  at  last  it  shall  be  reduced  to 
everlasting  order  in  the  Divine-natural  humanity,  or  God's  coming 
social  kingdom  in  the  earth  ! 


SWEDENBORG  DESTROYS  THEIR  PRESTIGE.    367 

forth  in  our  capacity  as  individual  men,  save  as 
enabling  us  to  account  for  certain  very  striking 
differences  of  hereditary  temperament  in  us. 
Neither  could  they  have  claimed  any  such  living 
interest  to  us  in  the  past,  if  we  had  not  stupidly 
attributed  to  nature  an  absolute  or  independent 
reality.  If  we,  seeing  in  nature  what  in  truth  it 
is,  a  mere  intellectual  basis  for  the  revelation  of 
God's  spiritual  creation  in  man,  had  been  in  the 
habit  of  attributing  to  it  a  purely  human  quality, 
or  an  implicit  subserviency  to  man,  we  should  of 
course  never  have  made  it  spiritually  antagonistic 
to  God's  infinitude,  nor  exacted  therefore  the  ex- 
istence of  a  spiritual  and  supposititious  heaven  and 
hell,  in  order  to  adjust  the  balance  between  crea- 
tor and  creature  which  only  our  own  stupidity  had 
disturbed.  Swedenborg  has  so  unconsciously  but 
so  effectually  riddled  heaven  and  hell  both  alike 
of  all  subjective  human  worth,  by  showing  God's 
power  to  be  alone  operative  in  the  quasi  freedom 
of  the  one  sphere  and  the  quasi  order  of  the  other, 
as  to  leave  them  without  the  least  objective  signifi- 
cance any  longer  to  the  human  mind.  They  have 
become  now  a  complete  superstition  to  the  philo- 
sophic thought  of  men,  and  as  to  any  legitimate 
bearing  they  exert  upon  the  interests  of  men's  prac- 
tical life,  they  are  little  better  than  a  nuisance. 


CHAPTER   XIV. 

SWEDENBORG  AA'D  HIS  FOLLOWERS. 

*'  I  ^HE  little  sect  of  Swedenborgians,  as  they 
-^  name  themselves,  put  such  a  fantastic  esti- 
mate upon  the  letter  of  truth  —  provided  only  that 
that  letter  has  once  been  held  sacred — as  fairly  to 
revolt  every  one  of  the  least  spiritual  understand- 
ing. They  have  the  air  to  me,  for  example,  of 
carrying  about  with  them  between  their  shoulders 
a  huge  wen  instead  of  a  head,  superstitiously  la- 
belled in  great  capital  letters,  SANCTITY  OF  THE 
WORD ;  and  this  preposterous  legend  hopelessly 
stultifies  their  intelligence  by  crowding  it  out  of  all 
relation  to  the  only  veritable  divine  sanctity  now 
extant,  which  is  that  enshrined  in  our  own  flesh 
and  bones,  or  men's  actual  nature.  As  if  a  "word" 
could  be  any  longer  memorable  or  sacred  to  God 
which  so  remorselessly  defeated  its  own  purpose ! 
If  there  were  nothing  else  to  do  it,  their  own  ex- 
perience of  life  ought  to  have  taught  them  (with- 
out any  help  from  Swedenborg)  that  the  most 
sacred  letter  of  truth  should  be  assiduously  elim- 


TRUTH  AX  INVERSE  WITNESS  TO  GOOD.     369 

inated  or  put  out  of  sight  whenever  we  have  to 
deal  with  the  spirit  of  it,  which  is  GOOD.  For  ex- 
ample :  if  I  am  in  charity  or  neighborly  love,  much 
more  if  I  am  in  the  love  of  universal  man,  the  race 
man,  it  would  be  unspeakably  tiresome  to  me  to 
be  perpetually  reminded  by  some  "  dumb  dog"  of 
a  literalist  of  the  persistent  claims  of  the  letter  on 
my  regard,  and  to  be  told  by  him  that  I  must  give 
diligent  heed  still  to  abstain  from  false  witness  and 
theft  and  adultery  and  murder,  —  as  if  my  life  irre- 
vocably belonged  to  this  sphere  of  legality  !  to  this 
most  loathsome  mud  of  things !  Or  as  if  the  only 
sure  way  to  make  a  man  a  false  witness,  a  thief,  an 
adulterer,  and  a  murderer  were  not  to  restrict  his 
freedom  to  that  extent !  It  is  everywhere  in  fact 
most  burdensome  to  a  living  man  (that  is,  a  man 
ensouled  iji  good  by  his  heart  coming  to  take  prac- 
tical priority  of  his  head)  to  be  pastured  on  truth 
even  the  most  sacred ;  for  truth  at  the  very  best  is 
but  a  negative  or  inverse  witness  of  good,  and  to 
every  one  who  is  spiritually  enlivened  by  good  fur- 
nishes a  most  tedious  and  provoking  reminder  of  it. 
I  doubt  not,  if  the  patient  be  persistently  treated 
to  the  perfume  of  this  disgusting  reminiscence, 
that  his  life  ere  long  will  go  out  in  spiritual  coma 
and  asphyxia. 

I  take  the  greatest  pleasure  in  signalizing  this 
difference  in  man's  intellectual  relations  to  truth, 


370  GENIUS  OF  OLD  WORLD  AND  NEW. 

because  the  difference,  as  it  seems  to  me,  indi- 
cates and  grows  out  of  a  very  marked  contrariety 
in  the  European  and  American  genius.  The  gen- 
ius of  Europe  prompts  men  to  take  for  granted 
that  man's  providential  destiny  is  to  reahze  a  heav- 
enly Hfe  out  of  nature,  or  in  the  skies.  It  may 
strike  the  reader  as  absurd  to  say  that  the  gen- 
ius of  Europe  inspires  this  supposition  in  men, 
when  he  reflects  that  almost  the  whole  of  intel- 
lectual Europe  now  renounces  the  ecclesiastical 
conception  of  human  destiny.  Still  it  cannot  be 
denied  that  the  European  intellect  has  always  been 
identified  with  the  church  tradition  on  this  subject, 
and  that  we  have  derived  our  feebler  ecclesiastical 
life  from  it  exclusively.  The  genius  of  the  New 
World,  on  the  other  hand,  persuades  one  that  men's 
providential  destiny  is  to  achieve  immortal  life 
only  through  a  plenary  redemption  of  their  com- 
mon nature,  divinely  freed  from  the  limitations  and 
obstructions  which  their  own  frivolous  personal- 
ities impose  upon  it,  and  not  at  all  through  any 
private  or  particular  regeneration  which  they  may 
be  personally  privileged  to  undergo.  Inspired  with 
this  hope,  I  myself  would  not  give  a  fig  to  be 
invested  with  all  the  best  regenerate  life  of  men 
from  Adam's  day  down  to  our  own.  Thus  it  is  a 
man's  intellectual  nativity  which  determines  him  to 
be  either  churchman  and  statesman,  or  else  a  man. 


HOW  IT  SIGNALIZES  ITSELF.  371 

I  do  not  mean,  of  course,  to  contrast  the  actual 
personal  manhood  of  these  latitudes  with  the  ac- 
tual personal  manhood  of  Europe,  for  no  doubt 
the  interests  of  the  actual  leave  us  little  ground  of 
boasting  on  either  side.  All  I  mean  to  say  is,  that 
the  interests  of  men's  future  or  potential  manhood 
are  better  provided  for  under  these  spiritual  skies 
than  under  European  ones,  because  there  is  ac- 
tually no  belief  here  in  the  church  as  a  mediator 
between  man  and  God,  nor  consequently  in  the 
state  (its  product)  as  a  fixture  of  human  destiny. 
And  we  know  very  well  that  the  whole  purpose 
of  God  in  human  history  has  been  to  get  rid  of 
mediators  between  him  and  his  creature,  by  in- 
ducing the  latter  to  cherish  a  decided  respect  for 
himself  as  the  product  of  omnipotence.  A  good- 
humored  regard  no  doubt  is  entertained  here  for 
church  and  state,  on  the  ground  of  their  past  ser- 
vices to  humanity ;  but  I  do  not  think  it  is  a  serious 
regard,  or  anything  approaching  to  reverence. 

Now  this  difference  of  genius  between  the  Old 
World  and  the  New,  which  puts  us  in  such  very 
different  practical  relation  to  the  letter  of  sacred 
writ,  renders  it  inevitable  that  we  should  entertain 
a  most  unequal  respect  on  the  one  hand  for  spirits 
and  angels  as  involved  in  that  letter,  or  consti- 
tuting its  machinery,  and  for  men  on  the  other 
as  constituting  no  part  of  such  machinery,  because 


3/2    IT  EXALTS  MEN  AND  DEPRESSES  ANGELS. 

they  are  the  very  end  to  which  it  is  all  addressed. 
Spirits  and  angels,  as  we  learn  from  Swedenborg, 
are  only  a  part  (a  vital  part,  as  I  have  said, 
but  still  only  a  part)  of  God's  literal  economy, 
considered  as  being  a  revelation  of  God  within 
nature.  We  must  either  consent  to  have  a  most 
embroiled  notion  of  men  and  angels  as  they  are 
severally  pictured  by  Swedenborg,  or  else  we  must 
consent  to  draw  this  sharp  distinction  between 
them  —  namely,  that  good  spirits  or  angels  are 
but  the  spiritualized  or  purified  portion  of  the 
church  on  earth,  and  thus  essentially  involved  in 
the  letter  of  the  word  as  its  interior  factor,  while 
men  are  the  very  end  for  wJiich  both  church  and 
world,  both  letter  and  spirit,  both  good  spirit  or  angel 
and  evil  spirit  or  devil,  themselves  exist. 

Before  Christ  appeared  in  flesh  to  put  away 
God's  typical  or  figurative  kingdom  in  our  na- 
ture and  introduce  the  real  one,  good  spirits  or 
angels  constituted  the  only  divine- nattcral  humanity 
that  then  was,  and  furnished  at  any  rate  an  ap- 
proximate, if  still  most  unworthy,  basis  to  the  only 
real  and  consummate  revelation  of  that  humanity 
which  was  afterwards  to  take  place  in  man's  natu- 
ral form.  We  may  conclude,  then,  that  the  sole 
excuse  for  angelic  existence  —  much  more  for  in- 
fernal existence — is  to  be  found  in  an  imperfect 
development  of  human  nature.     That  is  to  say,  if 


BAD    LOOKOUT  FOR  ANGELS  AS  SUCH.     Z7Z 

human  nature  could  have  been  an  objective,  abso- 
lute, out  and  out  gift  of  God  to  men,  —  if  it  were 
not  necessarily  a  strict  communication  to  them  on 
the  basis  of  their  own  finite  experience,  —  spirits 
and  angels  would  never  have  existed,  but  man 
alone ;  and  consequently  the  world  would  never 
have  needed  any  formal  revelation  of  the  divine 
name,  much  less  any  formal  church  (e/c/fXT^crm)  to 
embody  it;  for  then  human  society,  which  is  the 
inseparable  form  of  human  nature,  would  have 
presented  in  its  own  proper  person  an  every  way 
substantial  and,  indeed,  eternal  vindication  of  that 
name.  But  human  nature,  as  every  thoughtful 
man  knows,  is  not  an  absolute  or  simplistic  gift  of 
God ;  it  is  anything  and  everything  but  that,  in 
fact.  Strictly  speaking,  it  is  nothing  else  but  the 
method  or  means  of  God's  spiritual  creation,  —  a 
method  or  means  so  infallible  that  it  presents  crea- 
tor and  creature,  infinite  and  finite,  good  and  evil, 
true  and  false,  in  such  complete  fusion  that  we 
cannot  possibly  see  either  element  disengaged  from 
the  other  (except  logically)  until  the  nature  shall 
work  itself  out  to  finished  form  in  society,  which 
will  finally  do  the  amplest  and  most  exact  justice 
to  both  elements  in  identifying  the  creator  with  the 
natural,  universal,  or  public  force  in  humanity, 
the  creature  with  its  spiritual  individual  or  private 
force. 


374     THEY  ARE  A  MERE  MECHAXISM  OF  COD. 

Until  men  have  come  into  finished  social  form, 
then,  which  announces  the  glorified  state  of  their 
nature,  they  can  communicate  with  God  only  in 
an  outward  way,  of  course,  or  on  the  basis  of 
a  temporary  revelation.  Now  angelic  existence 
(and,  as  incidental  to  that,  infernal  existence)  is 
essential  to  the  mechanism  of  this  outward  reve- 
lation, or  furnishes  it  transiently  its  inward,  in- 
visible ground,  having  no  other  philosophic  end 
than  to  insure  it  competent  superficial  or  scientific 
form.  Thus  the  whole  human  or  philosophic  in- 
terest of  angels  and  spirits  to  our  minds  lies  in 
their  being  a  part  of  God's  revelation  of  himself 
in  our  nature.  They  are  the  soul,  so  to  speak,  of 
that  great  apocalyptic  record  which  God  makes  of 
himself  in  our  natural  history,  and  of  which  the 
church  on  earth  has  always  been  the  abject,  lifeless 
body,  but  nothing  more,  with  absolutely  no  locus 
standi  or  rational  footing  outside  of  this  transient 
providential  necessity.  Let  us  clearly  understand, 
then,  that  angel  and  spirit  —  and  even  this  not  in 
themselves,  but  only  in  that  miraculous  individual 
form  into  which,  tJirotigh  their  free  contrariety  to 
the  hells,  they  are  logically  constrained  (that  is, 
constrained  by  the  divine  logos,  wisdom,  or  word 
forever  inherent  and  formative  in  our  nature)  —  are 
but  a  half-way  house  or  stepping-stone  to  God's 
real  achievement  in  our  flesh  and  blood,  or  lowest 


IMBECILITY  OF  SWEDENBORGIANS.  375 

animal  personalities ;  are  but  a  clean-swept  upper 
story  or  fragrant  bed-room  floor  in  that  house  of 
mystical  revelation  to  which  the  church  on  earth 
has  served  as  needful  but  unhandsome  basement 
story,  as  grimy,  unclean,  but  inevitable  kitchen 
floor,  so  to  speak;  and  to  look  for  any  substan- 
tive meaning  in  them  apart  from  such  mystical  use, 
or  not  rigidly  incidental  and  subordinate  to  the 
interests  of  revelation,  is  flagrantly  to  disuse  one's 
understanding  in  reading  Swedenborg,  and  rely 
upon  one's  parrot-like  memory. 

Nothing  by  the  way  can  be  more  dreary  or  dis- 
mal as  an  intellectual  entertainment  than  to  read 
good,  modest,  old  Swedenborg  with  a  servile  mind, 
or  with  one's  thought  attuned  to  a  sort  of  obliga- 
tory faith  in  him,  as  if  he  personally  were  invested 
with  a  delegated  divine  authority  to  men's  intelli- 
gence. To  look  upon  Swedenborg  in  this  prepos- 
terous way  must  work  such  sensible  degradation 
to  the  rational  faculties  that  it  is  no  wonder  the 
Swedenborgian  sect  is  able  to  worry  so  little  re- 
spectable human  meaning  out  of  him  as  to  make 
him  fall  dead  practically  upon  the  public  sense. 
To  impose  any  such  superstition  upon  myself 
would  be  a  miserable  bondage  to  me ;  and  I  am 
certain  I  should  ere  long  resent  it  so  much  as 
unqualifiedly  to  renounce  all  care  for  the  author 
or  his  books.     It  is  needless  to  say  to  any  out- 


3/6    NO   GROUND   FOR  IT  IN  THEIR  MASTER. 

side  or  unmercenary  reader  of  Swedenborg  that 
there  is  in  his  books  no  particle  of  justification 
for  this  hbellous  misuse  of  him,  and  that  it  comes 
altogether  of  a  slavish  habit  of  mind  engendered 
among  men  by  their  superstitious  belief  in  a  fixed 
or  finite  spiritual  world  existing  somewhere  ift  some 
outlandish  limbo,  which  is  nevertheless  intrinsically 
superior  to  and  independent  of  this  soHd  natural 
world.  There  is  no  ground  in  Swedenborg's  books 
for  this  absurd  spiritual  world.  He  apparently 
made  the  acquaintance  of  no  spiritual  world  which 
does  not  inhere  as  fixedly  and  firmly  in  our  fa- 
miliar natural  world  as  men's  organic  brains  and 
viscera  inhere  in  their  outward  bodies.  And  how- 
ever much  his  Swedenborgian  followers  may  blush 
at  such  a  statement,  I  have  not  the  least  idea 
that  Swedenborg  himself  ever  put  any  other  than 
a  most  modest  estimate  upon  the  purely  subject- 
ive information  he  brings  them  from  the  spiritual 
world,  and  never  dreamed  that  their  frivolous 
minds  were  going  to  be  stayed  in  any  amount  of 
such  gossip  from  going  on  to  realize  the  object- 
ive and  honest  divine-natural  life  which,  according 
to  this  very  gossip  even,  is  latent  in  their  own 
flesh  and  bones.  My  reader  and  I  may  be  greatly 
interested  in  the  study  of  physiology ;  but  clearly 
neither  this  study  nor  any  other  kind  of  study  can 
ever  constitute  our  intellectual  ideal,  which  must 


HE   CONTEMNED    THE  SPIRITUAL   WORLD.    ZJJ 

always   be   simply  to  live,  or  realize  in   our  own 
persons,  the  fullest  life  of  our  kind. 

At  any  rate,  Swedenborg  does  all  he  can  to 
liberate  the  mind  from  such  a  night-mare  view  of 
spiritual  existence.  It  almost  leaps  at  the  eyes 
from  the  very  face  of  his  books  that  he  encount- 
ered no  such  stuck-up  or  cut-and-dried  specimen 
of  a  spiritual  world  as  is  in  vogue  among  Sweden- 
borgians.  Neither  his  hells  nor  his  heavens  have 
the  least  of  finished  objective  or  humanitary  fla- 
vor, but  both  alike  betray  the  marvellous  Provi- 
dence that  guides  the  world,  still  aux  prises  with 
the  insane  pretension  of  a  strictly  natural  or  private 
selfhood  in  man,  and  seeking  perfectly  to  over- 
come it  in  the  interests  of  our  common  nature  it- 
self His  spiritual  world  is  in  fact  a  purely  subjec- 
tive world,  made  up  of  good  subjects  on  the  one 
side  and  evil  subjects  on  the  other,  with  no  point 
of  contact  or  transition  between  them ;  both  alike 
and  equally  subjects  of  law,  —  only  one  an  inward 
subject,  the  other  an  outward  one,  but  with  no 
claim  either  of  them  to  real  or  inherent  dignity, 
that  is,  to  natural  or  spontaneous  manhood,  any 
more  than  if  they  had  been  conscious  stocks  and 
stones.  If  Swedenborg  takes  vastly  greater  pains 
to  attest  one  fact  than  another,  it  is  the  fact  that 
the  angels  owe  all  their  spiritual  advantage  over 
devils  to  the  circumstance  of  their  acting  upon  the 


378     ANGEL  AND  DEVIL  SUBSIDIARY  TO  MAN. 

• 
idea  that  their  natural  force,  or  force  of  selfhood, 

was  only  a  seeming  force  in  them,  not  a  real  one, 
while  their  rivals  maintained  the  opposite  and 
most  illusory  notion  of  its  being  a  real  force.  And 
such  a  world,  so  intensely  because  inwardly  fi- 
nite, would  of  course,  if  it  were  considered  as  a 
finality  of  the  divine  power,  prove  instantly  fatal 
to  the  truth  of  its  infinitude.  Accordingly  this 
puny  spiritual  world  (made  up  of  heaven  and  hell) 
which  Swedenborg  reports  to  our  inteUigence  will 
no  doubt  continue  for  an  indefinite  period  to  en- 
gage men's  attention  in  the  way  of  illustration, 
but  it  cannot  possibly  have  any  interest  for  them 
in  itself.  His  own  fearless  and  unabashed  dealing 
with  heaven  and  hell  as  strictly  spiritual,  or  infra 
human  and  natural,  modes  of  the  divine  existence 
in  his  creatures,  equally  remote  from  spontaneity, 
has  reduced  them  to  mere  intellectual  common- 
place, to  a  mere  fossil  or  palaeontological  signifi- 
cance ;  and  although  they  may  still  be  able  to  offer 
a  refuge  to  one's  wayward  or  diseased  subjective 
fancies,  I  am  persuaded  that  they  have  effectually 
fallen  out  of  the  living  mind  of  men  as  objective 
existences,  or  as  a  home  for  honest  and  enlarged 
human  thought.  For  myself  I  may  say  that  I  have 
an  unaffected  respect  and  sympathy  for  angels  and 
devils,  so  long  as  I  can  perceive  them  to  be  of  this 
purely  illustrative  use  and  efficacy  to  the  mind; 


GOD  HIMSELF  THE  HEAD-NATURAL/ST.     3/9 

that  is,  so  long  as  they  wear  a  strictly  ancillary 
aspect  to  humanity.  But  when,  through  their  ser- 
vile disloyal  attorneys  in  the  church  and  the  world, 
they  assume  to  be  lifted  above  the  lot  of  human 
nature,  and  claim  a  commanding  instead  of  a  sub- 
servient position  towards  men  in  the  flesh,  I  feel 
like  sending  the  whole  infatuated  raft  of  them  — 
principals  and  attorneys  both  alike  —  a  thousand 
feet  high  in  air.  They  are  all  of  them  mere  viscera 
of  humanity,  —  a  downright  implication  or  involu- 
tion of  our  tiresome,  dishonest,  unwholesome  per- 
sofis,  —  and  do  nothing  of  themselves  or  in  se  to 
explicate  or  evolve  the  perfected  divine  or  social 
form  of  our  nature,  any  more  than  my  reader's  or 
my  bodily  viscera  do  to  explain  our  particular  per- 
sonalities, which  are  our  several  relations  to  church 
and  state. 

In  short,  the  distinction,  once  fully  avouched  and 
accredited  on  earth,  between  the  spiritual  world  as 
occupying  a  nearer  relation  to  God  and  the  natural 
world  as  occupying  a  more  remote  relation,  is  now 
pretty  effectually  "  played  out,"  as  the  children  say, 
and  a  reverse  or  even  revolutionary  distinction  is 
fast  obtaining.  It  seems  to  be  pretty  generally  ad- 
mitted at  the  present  time  —  at  least  in  this  country 
—  that  the  natural  world  either  is  or  ought  to  be 
of  nearer  interest  to  God  than  ten  thousand  spir- 
itual worlds;  for  it  is  God's  own  objective  world,  so 


380  SPIRIT  AND  ANGEL  DYING   OUT. 

to  speak,  —  that  is,  the  only  world  in  which  his  love 
and  wisdom  are  definitively  married,  or  made  one, 
in  his  power  or  man's  spontaneous  life.  So  that  if 
men  should  only  eat  and  drink  and  sleep,  provided 
they  do  these  things  in  a  divine-natural  or  aesthetic 
way — a  way  which  shows  them  perfectly  cured  of 
their  gross  personal  aims,  or  inherited  proclivities  to 
self-love  —  they  will  be  infinitely  more  acceptable 
to  the  heart  of  God  than  the  angels  have  ever  been, 
even  though  these  latter  have  always  signalized 
their  conformity  to  him  by  diligently  renouncing 
falsehood  and  theft  and  adultery  and  murder.  For 
the  angels,  as  Swedenborg  shows  us,  have  been 
always  kept  from  these  gross  evils  only  by  the  ab- 
solute constraint  of  divine  pozver,  working  agaitist 
their  private  inclinations ;  whereas  under  the  di- 
vme-7iatural  administration,  or  the  evolution  of  a 
race-righteousness  in  men,  we  learn  to  abhor  all 
iniquity  and  uncleanness  of  our  very  selves,  —  that 
is,  spontaneously.  A  vis  medicatrix  natures  which 
angels  have  never  felt  the  force  of,  and  never  will, 
except  through  the  reflex  operation  of  the  divine- 
natural  life,  is  fast  coming  into  play  with  men  in 
the  flesh,  relieving  them  of  their  chronic  egotism, 
of  their  unrecognized  selfishness,  as  infallibly  as 
a  healthy  body  now  throws  off  a  fever,  or  as 
men  change  a  garment  which  is  soiled  by  use  or 
accident. 


SWEDENBORG  A   NATURAL   HISTORIAN.     381 

I  heartily  thank  Swedenborg  then,  and  shall 
always  recognize  him  as  a  strictly  providential 
man,  for  his  most  instructive  and  entertaining  visa 
et  audita,  gathered  fresh  or  at  first  hand  among 
the  angels ;  certainly  not  because  I  set  the  least 
value  upon  these  egregious  experiences  as  a  final 
possession  of  the  human  mind,  but  because  I  see 
very  clearly  that  if  he  or  some  other  equally  qual- 
ified scientific  intelligence  had  not  done  us  this 
inestimable  service  of  giving  the  spiritual  world  an 
eternal  quietits  as  to  any  just  claim  it  has  to  lord  it 
over  the  natural  world,  and  reducing  it  to  the  due 
subserviency  of  the  latter,  we  should  still  be  theo- 
logically a  prey  to  the  most  harmful  and  odious 
superstition.  Besides,  had  it  not  been  for  this 
most  timely  and  unexpected  exposure  of  the  spir- 
itual world,  and  its  insolent  baseless  pretensions, 
we  should  have  long  lacked  a  necessary  and  indeed 
vital  part  of  our  natural  history,  —  that  which  re- 
lates us  to  our  deceased  ancestral  cronies,  and  which 
now,  by  keeping  up  the  sentiment  of  an  always 
living  continuity  with  them,  makes  the  idea  of  a 
race-unity  among  men  inevitable.  I  do  not  know 
where,  outside  of  Swedenborg's  bulky  and  inar- 
tistic memorabilia,  to  find  any  authentic  data  for 
our  distinctively  natural  history,  as  that  history 
has  always  been  patiently  symbolizing  itself  to  our 
stolid    intelligence    in    the    ever-growing    enlarge- 


382  WHAT  IS  NATURAL   HISTORY? 

merit  and  conversion  of  the  once  sacred  and  divine 
Church  into  the  famihar  and  secular  human  State. 
This  is  the  only  history  capable  of  greatly  interest- 
ing the  philosophic  mind,  for  it  is  not  written  in 
brief  pedantic  and  partisan  books,  spun  out  of 
pedantic  and  partisan  brains,  but  in  great  world- 
wide pictures  of  honest  human  want  slowly  strug- 
gling out  of  its  rudiments  in  mere  animal  use  and 
wont,  through  the  blind  hard  tutelage  of  moral 
and  rational  ideas,  into  divine  fellowship  and  rec- 
ognition. What  men  are  wont  to  call  history  is 
merely  particidar  history,  —  for  example,  the  in- 
fluence and  achievement  of  particular  persons  in 
particular  times  and  places,  or  the  influence  and 
achievement  of  particular  countries  more  advanced 
in  civilization  upon  other  countries  less  advanced. 
But  this  tiresome  conception  of  history,  as  dealing 
with  men's  moral  or  subjective  fortunes,  falls  com- 
pletely witJiin  the  conception  of  our  great  objective 
or  race  history,  and  forfeits  all  its  interest  the  mo- 
ment the  latter  is  recognized  by  the  mind.  It  is 
mere  personal  or  unreal  history,  having  only  a 
subjective  or  seeming  truth  at  most,  although  it  is 
not  seldom  very  dramatic,  and  instinct  oftentimes 
with  reflected  human  or  philosophic  lustre.  It  is 
as  if  a  physician  should  take  to  portraying  the 
action  of  a  morbid  lungs  or  liver  or  heart  upon  the 
subject's  bodily  organism,  by  way  of  conveying  a 


IT  IS  NOT  PRIMARILY  MATERIAL.  3S3 

lively  negative  picture  of  the  body  in  health.  But 
this  is  exactly  what  I  do  not  mean  by  our  race-evo- 
lution. Our  natural  history  is  not  at  all  a  history 
of  men's  petty  and  warring  subjectivities  within 
the  dimensions  of  the  race ;  it  is  a  history  of  the 
human  race  itself,  attaining  to  objective  divine  in- 
nocence, emerging  out  of  all  the  defilement  heaped 
upon  it  by  men's  deciduous  and  illusory  subjectiv- 
ities, and  standing  erect  and  clear  and  free  at  last 
in  the  panoply  of  God's  perfection.  For  as  soon 
as  men's  divine-natural  or  race-personality  an- 
nounces itself  in  consciousness,  their  fallacious 
private  personalities,  which  have  so  long  made  wan- 
ton havoc  on  earth  with  God's  goodness  and  truth, 
wither  and  die  out  like  frost-touched  leaves  in  au- 
tumn, or  stars  at  dawn,  seeking  resurrection  only 
in  the  spiritual  or  subjective  world.  In  short,  our 
natural  history  is  —  all  simply — the  growth  of  the 
human  mind  itself  into  free  spontaneous  sympa- 
thy with  God's  infinitude,  which  (finally)  is  man's 
spiritual  creation. 

Thus  our  natural  history  must  never  be  con- 
founded with  our  material  history,  or  our  advanc- 
ing prosperity  in  space  and  time.  Our  natural  his- 
tory will  produce  no  doubt,  when  it  is  completed, 
very  signal  effects  upon  our  material  prosperity; 
for  we  shall  then  have  omnipotence  harnessed  to 
our  street  cars,  and  applying  itself  to  every  detail 


384  CHILDISH  HALLUCINATIONS. 

of  our  housekeeping.  It  is  prophesied  indeed,  in 
figurative  New-Testament  language,  that  we  shall 
then  be  able  to  handle  serpents  and  drink  deadly 
poisons  with  impunity.  But  even  then  it  will  never 
endure  to  be  identified  with  any  such  improved 
methods  of  material  well-being.  I  remember  very 
well  what  Swedenborg  reports  as  the  highest  style 
of  celestial  life  interpreting  itself  into  a  refined  sen- 
sitivity; but  then  he  always  pictures  this  refined 
sensitivity  as  due  to  the  operation  of  inward  or 
spiritual  causes,  never  to  the  operation  of  outward 
or  natural  causes.  One  has  the  witness  of  this  fact 
in  his  own  experience.  I  seem  to  myself  to  have 
long  passed  the  allotted  period  of  man's  life,  but  at 
any  rate  I  am  sure  that  the  fixed  illusions  of  my 
youth  could  never  be  again  revived  even  by  divine 
power.  There  is  sweet  Fanny  Brown,  my  sister's 
friend,  who  used  to  make  the  blood  course  through 
my  veins  like  a  race-horse,  and  whose  footsteps  I 
used  to  pursue  with  actual  adoring  kisses;  there  is 
sweet  Agnes  Lamb,  Ellen  Elliot,  Fanny  Rockwell, 
Julia  Casey,  and  Ellen  Duer,  who  all  of  them  had 
power  to  divinize  my  life  for  a  brief  moment,  to  res- 
cue it  from  the  idolatry  of  the  multiplication  table. 
Am  I  insane  enough  to  suppose  that  if  any  or  all 
of  these  well-worshipped  but  long  since  deceased 
maidens  were  able  now  to  resuscitate  themselves  in 
their  early  bloom  and  freshness  before  my  very  eyes, 


ELDERLY  REFLECTIONS   THEREUPON.        385 

they  would  quicken  my  sluggish  blood  even  to  a 
moderate  trot  or  canter?  Was  it  ever  really  life  I 
used  to  worship  in  these  tenderly  sacred  persons? 
No,  it  was  always  death,  which  is  at  best  but  the 
divinely  vivified  shadow  or  semblance  or  image  of 
life,  that  I  perpetually  felt  in  love  with  their  exqui- 
site illusory  forms.  And  now  that  I  am  old  I  never 
grow  tired  of  whispering  to  myself,  If  this  unques- 
tionable realm  of  death — which  after  all  is  only 
a  shadow  of  the  creative  life  in  us  —  exerts  such 
energy  over  man's  senses  and  reason,  how  infi- 
nitely energetic  must  be  the  hold  of  that  life  it- 
self upon  us  when  encountered  in  substance !  In 
other  words.  If  the  sphere  of  God's  mere  play,  or 
illusion,  in  creation  be  so  habitually  overwhelming 
to  our  imagination,  how  utterly  beyond  conception 
must  be  the  transforming  virtue  of  almighty  power 
or  reality  upon  us !  Why,  even  God  himself,  as 
men  naturally  conceive  of  him,  is  the  most  mon- 
strous illusion.  For  conceived  under  the  attributes 
of  space  and  time,  nothing  can  be  so  hideous  and 
revolting  as  the  thought  of  God's  existence.  Hence 
it  is  that  the  blessed  gospel  of  Christ  makes  it  a 
primary  obligation  of  God  to  his  creatures  thor- 
oughly to  revolutionize  their  nature  or  kind,  by 
establishing  on  the  earth  a  human  or  living  and 
spiritual  conception  of  him.  It  is  needless  to  say 
that  this  is  an  obligation  with  which  the  newest 

2"; 


386  AND  so  FORTH. 

born  Swedenborgian  convert  is  quite  as  little  in 
sympathy,  as  any  of  the  grosser,  or  more  sportive 
and  puerile,  sectarian  patrons  of  the  divine  name. 


CHAPTER  XV. 

INCARNATION. 

I  HAVE  briefly  shown  in  a  former  chapter  that 
the  sensible  universe  comes  from  God's  spirit- 
ual incarnation  in  human  nature,  and  is  itself  the 
ultimate  —  that  is,  the  outmost,  lowest,  or  most  con- 
crete —  form  of  such  incarnation,  being,  in  fact,  its 
eternal  anchorage  to  consciousness. 

Incarnation  is  the  sole  truth  or  method  of  spirit- 
ual creation,  insomuch  as  it  is  absolutely  necessary 
to  account  for  that  vivification  of  the  creature's  na- 
ture in  which  alone  spiritual  creation  consists.  In 
other  words,  nothing  but  it  explains  the  creature's 
natural  identity,  which  is  the  indispensable  basis  of 
his  subsequent  spiritual  individuality,  or  new  birth 
from  the  skies.  Spiritual  creation  consists  wholly 
in  a  divine  quickening  of  the  creature's  nature,  with- 
out which  immovable  underpinning  it  would  never 
come  to  light.  The  real  life  of  the  creature,  which 
is  an  uncreated  life,  is  always  of  course  in  the  crea- 
tor. But  his  real  Hfe  is  very  far  from  being  his 
only  life.     His   unreal   life,  which   he   esteems  as 


3^8  INCARNATION  DEFINED. 

vastly  more  important  than  the  real  one,  is  in  truth 
only  a  seeming  life,  but  it  is  a  life  in  himself,  which 
the  other  is  not.  It  is  his  constitutional  life,  giving 
him  natural  identity,  or  separating  him  from  the 
creator  by  all  the  breadth  of  consciousness  ;  and  he 
feels  himself  so  wholly  domesticated  in  it  that  his 
real  life  cannot  help  looking  very  foreign  and  dis- 
tant. Now  even  this  apparent  or  phenomenal  life 
of  the  creature  —  which  seems  to  be  altogether  his 
own  as  making  him  naturally  exist  or  giving  him  a 
sense  of  selfhood  —  would  yet  be  wholly  lacking  to 
his  experience  were  it  not  for  a  divine  quickening 
of  his  nature.  For  his  nature  as  a  creature  stamps 
him  eternally  void  of  life  in  himself,  so  that  God's 
omnipotence  exerted  to  that  end  would  be  unable 
to  endow  his  creature  with  selfhood  except  by  first 
vivifying  his  nature. 

What  I  mean,  then,  by  incarnation  is  this :  that 
God  or  the  Lord,  meaning  by  that  term  God-man 
—  for  I  am  not  a  bit  of  a  deist,  properly  so-called, 
and  cannot  for  the  life  of  me  imagine  the  existence 
of  a  God  outside  of  our  nature,  having  other  than 
essentially  human  attributes  —  is  the  sole  sub- 
stance or  reality  of  everything  embraced  in  the 
sensible  universe,  from  its  central  sun  to  the  plane- 
tary earths  that  encircle  it,  and  from  these  again  to 
the  tiniest  mineral,  vegetable,  and  animal  forms 
that   enliven   their   surface.      Nothing    is   exempt 


WHAT  HUMAN  NATURE  IS.  389 

from  the  operation  of  this  law  but  the  field  of  self- 
consciousness,  which  not  being  a  thing,  or  object 
of  sense,  but  on  the  contrary  a  sphere  of  meta- 
physical illusion  in  the  creature,  can  have  of  course 
no  corresponding  reality  in  the  creator.  Self-con- 
sciousness is  the  only  possible  sphere  of  evil  in  the 
universe,  and  is  therefore  excluded  from  creation 
altogether,  being  gradually  absorbed  and  super- 
seded by  unitary  or  race-consciousness. 

But  is  mineral,  vegetable,  and  animal  nature 
human  nzX.ViXQ.'f  Unquestionably;  only  it  is  human 
nature  with  God  left  out.  God  enters  human  na- 
ture only  through  the  individual  conscience,  con- 
fessing itself  evil  and  false.  There  is  no  other  way 
of  his  becoming  incarnate  in  it,  and  so  lifting  us  to 
the  plenary  enjoyment  of  his  own  life.  The  crea- 
tor of  man  is  not  incarnate  in  mineral,  vegetable, 
or  animal,  but  only  in  man,  for  otherwise  obviously 
man  would  have  been  barred  out  of  creation ;  and 
hence  these  lower  natures  may  be  a  very  good  ex- 
pression or  exhibition  of  what  human  nature  is  in 
itself,  though  a  very  poor  exhibit  of  what  it  is  as 
glorified  by  the  divine  indwelling.  Mineral,  vege- 
table, and  animal  are  organized  and  therefore  more 
or  less  tmivasal  forms  of  consciousness,  the  lowest 
or  mineral  being  the  most  universal,  and  the  high- 
est or  animal  being  the  least  universal.  But  in 
genius  they  are  all  alike  universal.     The  mineral  is 


390     HUMAN  NA  TURE    THE   ONL  Y  NA  TURE. 

SO  wholly  universal  indeed,  —  that  is,  shows  the 
tendency  which  all  universality  has  to  individuality, 
in  so  comparatively  feeble  a  degree,  —  that  it  seems 
to  our  unspiritual  vision  to  be  utterly  unconscious, 
that  is,  even  insensible  or  dead,  and  hence  serves 
as  a  very  good  base  or  background  to  vegetable 
and  animal,  which  are  much  more  highly  individu- 
alized forms  of  universal  consciousness.  Because 
these  forms  have  so  universal  a  genius,  we  never 
think  of  attributing  ill-desert  to  them,  however  in- 
juriously related  they  may  be  to  human  life,  but 
hold  them  under  all  circumstances  to  be  morally 
innocent,  as  free  in  fact  from  actual  turpitude  as 
the  babe  unborn. 

There  is  but  one  nature,  then,  and  that  is  human 
nature,  so  named  from  God's  true  creature,  man ; 
for  mineral,  vegetable,  and  animal  are  God's  crea- 
tures only  as  involved  in  man,  and  without  him 
could  have  no  possible  cattsa  existendi.  They  are 
an  outward  or  sensible  manifestation  to  man  of  his 
own  inward  divinely  quickened  nature,  of  which 
otherwise  he  would  be  obdurately  unconscious.  I 
called  them  a  moment  since  the  ancJiorage  of  our 
human  nature;  and  this  is  just  what  they  are,  —  a 
safe  and  fast  anchorage  of  human  nature  within  the 
realm  of  sense,  where  alone  it  is  accessible  to  our 
science.  For  being  in  itself  a  strictly  metaphysical 
existence,  it  would  always  remain  invisible  to  us. 


MAN  ALONE  SELF-CONSCIOUS.  39 1 

and  hence  incogitable,  unless  it  projected  itself  to 
our  acquaintance  in  these  mineral,  vegetable,  and 
animal  types.  It  cannot  surprise  us  that  our  na- 
ture should  introduce  itself  outwardly  to  our  ac- 
quaintance in  these  typical  forms,  for  all  these 
forms  are  most  strictly  incidental  to  the  human 
form,  as  involved  in  its  maintenance,  nourishment, 
and  education.  They  are  types  or  images  of  hu- 
man nature,  not  subjects  of  it,  and  they  typify  it 
truly  only  when  they  are  viewed,  not  specifically, 
but  in  their  generic  relations  to  other  genera,  giving 
and  receiving  modification  from  each  other;  and 
to  man  their  head,  as  the  only  proper  subject  of 
human  nature.  Man  is  the  only  proper  subject  of 
human  nature,  because  he  alone  is  a  j^^-conscious 
form,  as  having  his  universe  circumferential  to  him 
instead  of  central.  Self-consciousness  is  essen- 
tially subjective  in  form,  because  it  finds  its  proper 
object  (namely,  the  universe  of  its  kind)  outside 
of  it  And  such  an  inverted  relation  between  ob- 
ject and  subject,  creator  and  creature,  fountain  and 
stream,  parent  and  child,  cannot  help  proving  a 
bondage  to  the  subject  element,  so  long  as  it  en- 
dures; that  is,  until  the  subject  becomes  divinely 
redeemed  from  his  nature,  or  spiritually  new-born, 
by  finding  his  object  a  life  within  him,  and  no 
longer  a  law  without  him.  The  creative  spirit 
accordingly  dwells  in  mineral,  vegetable,  and  ani- 


392  NATURE   ONE  AND    UNIVERSAL. 

mal  only  as  a  spirit  of  use  to  the  higher  human 
form.  But  he  dwells  only  in  the  human  form  as  in 
himself,  —  that  is,  as  a  spirit  of  life  infinite  and  eter- 
nal; because  the  human  form  is  a  j'^Z/'-conscious 
one,  and  therefore  presents  that  antagonism  of 
inward  death  in  the  creature  which  alone  admits, 
and  solicits,  and  craves  in  fact,  the  inflow  of  crea- 
tive or  immortal  life. 

Any  one  can  see  then,  at  a  glance,  how  impor- 
tant it  is  to  the  intellect  to  remember  that  Nature 
in  all  her  forms  is  strictly  one  and  universal;  and 
that  being  thus  in  herself  one  and  universal,  she 
cannot  help  irresistibly  tending  to  produce  in  her 
proper  subject,  man,  an  individuality  which  also 
shall  be  one  and  universal,  —  that  \?,,  social.  This 
irresistible  tendency  in  nature  is  derived  to  it  of 
course  from  its  paternal  source,  which  is  God-man  ; 
and  it  will  not  be  placated  until  it  achieves  a  per- 
fect fellowship  or  society  of  each  man  in  the  uni- 
versal orb  of  earths  with  all  other  men,  and  of  all 
men  reciprocally  with  each,  —  that  so  at  last  the 
creative  infinitude  or  omnipotence  may  be  seen 
indwelling  in  its  creature  as  in  its  very  SELF. 

May  be  seen,  I  say.  For  this  is  all  that  nature 
and  history  do,  —  make  manifest  to  the  mind  of 
their  subject  the  things  that  pertain  to  his  invisible 
and  otherwise  incogitable  being.  Nature  is  not 
the  least  the  sphere  of  being,  nor  yet  of  existence. 


OFFICE   OF  NATURE  AND  HISTORY.  393 

but  simply  that  of  appearance.  This  is  the  most 
that  she  does  for  us,  —  makes  tis  phenomenal  to  onr- 
selves,  in  order  that  we  may  see  what  absolute  dev- 
ils we  should  be  if  our  being,  as  we  pretend,  were 
in  ourselves  or  in  our  own  keeping,  and  not  solely 
in  God  most  high.  Creation  does  not  consist,  as 
we  are  apt  to  think,  in  giving  us  natural  being 
or  substance,  but  in  giving  us  natural  form ;  and 
nature  and  history  have  no  purpose  or  meaning 
but  as  serving  to  base  this  form,  by  pointing  out 
to  our  intelligence  that  it  is  essentially  one  and 
universal,  —  that  is  to  say,  social.  Nature  and  his- 
tory do  but  reveal  to  us  in  the  things  that  are 
made  the  spiritual  things  that  are  unmade,  being 
eternal  in  the  heavens ;  and  if  we  continue  to  at- 
tribute anything  more  to  them  than  this  simply 
apocalyptic  or  pedagogic  significance,  we  not  only 
subject  ourselves  to  endless  intellectual  embarrass- 
ment, but  we  condemn  our  own  lives  to  perpetual 
unreality.  In  truth  we  condemn  our  selves  to  per- 
petual unreality,  which  is  living  or  spiritual  uncrea- 
tion.  For  nothing  but  this  shallow  and  persistent 
identification  of  nature  with  spirit,  of  what  is  phe- 
nomenon with  what  is  reality,  of  what  in  life  is 
simply  historical,  reflective,  dead  with  what  is  origi- 
nal, spontaneous,  living,  leaves  us  the  actual  prey, 
or  actual  sport,  in  fact,  which  we  still  unfortunately 
are  to  the  spiritual  world, — the  divided  world  of 


394  INCARNATION  RESTATED. 

heaven  and  hell,  —  so  cutting  us  off  from  God's  di- 
rect or  immediate  influence  upon  the  soul. 

What  I  mean  by  incarnation  is  now,  I  hope, 
somewhat  clear.  I  mean  by  it  no  mere  personal 
or  exceptional  fact  of  experience  either  in  nature 
or  history,  but  a  fact  which  is  rigidly  coextensive 
with  nature  and  history  both,  —  making  the  former 
a  phenomenally  fixed  existence  identical  with  law 
or  order,  the  latter  a  phenomenally  contingent  life 
identical  with  human  freedom  or  progress ;  the  one 
binding  man  in  conscious  unity  with  his  brother, 
the  other  by  means  of  that  unity  lifting  him  into 
conscious  unity  and  amity  with  all  divine  perfec- 
tion. Thus  incarnation  is  a  fact  of  rigidly  uni- 
versal dimensions,  and  no  way  of  individual  ones, 
except  the  individual  prefer  his  race's  welfare  to 
his  own,  and  inwardly  (if  need  be,  outAvardly  also) 
die  to  sdf-\o\^  through  a  supreme  love  to  God's 
love,  which  is  infinite  and  has  nothing  in  com- 
mon with  self-love.  It  means  that  God  spiritually 
quickens,  organizes,  and  maintains  this  wondrous 
realm  of  nature  as  an  nncrring  system  of  uses,  with 
a  view  thereby  to  develop,  support,  and  fix  the 
phenomenally  subjective  or  constitutional  life  of 
man,  —  so,  and  not  otherwise,  incarnating  himself 
in  our  natural  flesh  and  bones.  If  any  reader  can 
trace  these  natural  flesh  and  bones  of  ours  to  any 
other   and    his/her   mother-source   than   that    fur- 


HUMAN  NATURE  DISTINGUISHED.  395 

nished  by  our  own  mineral,  vegetable,  and  animal 
ancestry,  then  of  course  I  will  modify  my  state- 
ments, and  candidly  own  that  the  incarnation  takes 
place  there ;  but  if  he  cannot,  I  shall  abide  in  my 
present  faith. 

We  have  no  obvious  nature,  but  a  mineral,  vege- 
table and  animal  one.  All  that  is  properly  called 
nature  in  us,  as  opposed  to  person,  is  nourished 
upon  these  three  rich  motherly  breasts,  and  knows 
no  sweeter  and  lovelier  finite  parentage.  Why 
nevertheless  we  distinguish  our  nature  as  human, 
and  exclude  animal,  vegetable,  and  mineral  from  it, 
is  easily  enough  explicable.  It  is  because,  that,  al- 
though they  present  with  one  accord  to  our  eyes 
the  outward  correspondence  of  human  nature,  and 
are  therefore  objectively  or  hi  abstracto  denomi- 
nated nature  by  us,  still  the  nature  they  thus  sen- 
sibly stand  for  or  represent  is  wholly  foreign  to 
them,  and  wholly  unrecognized  by  them,  for  the 
simple  reason  that  they  have  no  inward  subjectiv- 
ity commensurate  with  its  miraculous  objectivity. 
There  is  no  mineral,  nor  vegetable,  nor  animal  na- 
ture, but  only  successive  mineral,  vegetable,  and 
animal  types  of  human  nature;  and  though  we  for 
our  own  convenience  are  in  the  habit  of  calling 
these  things  by  the  abstract  name  of  nature,  still 
we  should  all  of  us  be  profoundly  sorry  to  admit 
that    they   really   constitute    our   nature,    because 


396  NATURE  HAS  NO  PROPRIUM. 

that  would  be  equivalent  to  admitting  that  human 
nature  is  without  a  subject,  and  hence  destitute 
of  life.  The  mineral,  the  vegetable,  and  the  animal 
have  no  natural  propriiim  or  subjectivity  of  their 
own,  because  they  are  destitute  of  any  inward  or 
spiritual  life :  the  mineral  has  an  outward  life  in 
the  uses  it  subserves  to  vegetable  existence ;  and 
the  vegetable  in  like  manner  in  the  uses  it  sub- 
serves to  animal  existence,  as  the  animal  in  the 
uses  it  in  its  turn  subserves  to  man.  But  observe 
that  all  this  outward  objectivity  to  which  they  give 
an  unfaltering  allegiance  implies  no  inward  or  sub- 
jective freedom  on  their  part.  The  mineral  is 
wholly  unconscious  of  the  vegetable,  the  vegetable 
of  the  animal,  and  the  animal  of  man.  The  animal 
no  doubt  recognizes  man,  but  with  an  outward  or 
sensible  recognition  only,  not  a  conscious  or  in- 
ward one ;  that  is,  recognizes  the  specific  man  as 
his  care-taker  or  friend.  I  doubt  if  he  ever  recog- 
nizes the  generic  or  universal  man  as  his  proper 
friend  and  benefactor.  Indeed  I  have  no  doubt  on 
this  subject,  as  my  familiarity  with  dogs  has  long 
since  taught  mc  to  discriminate  between  the  hom- 
age which  the  animal  pays  his  master  or  owner, 
and  the  contemptuous  indifference  (if  nothing 
worse  than  that)  which  he  feels  toward  all  the 
rest  of  human  kind. 

The   mineral,  vegetable,  and  animal  nature  or 


A   SPIRITUAL  NATURE   DEFINED.  397 

quality  then,  as  derived  from  their  function,  is 
purely  representative,  reflective,  dead,  as  designed 
to  bear  witness  to  a  nature  which  is  not  their  own, 
but  which  at  the  same  time  comes  to  the  con- 
sciousness of  its  proper  subject  only  by  their  out- 
w^ard  or  sensibly  objective  attestation  to  it.  If  their 
nature  were  not  representative  but  real,  —  that  is, 
if  it  had  any  other  reality  than  the  wholly  outward 
and  superficial  one  given  it  by  sense,  —  it  would  be 
a  spiritual  or  living  nature.  But  a  spiritual  or  liv- 
ing nature  is  one  in  which  object  and  subject  are 
not  only  equal,  but  are  hierarchically  related  to 
each  other,  —  object  being  necessarily  interior  to 
subject,  subject  of  necessity  exterior  to  object. 
But  clearly  no  such  nature  as  this  is  possible  either 
to  mineral,  vegetable,  or  animal,  since  they  all  alike 
serve  or  obey  an  outward  object  exclusively,  —  one 
which  is  so  outward  indeed  as  to  be  the  nature  of 
an  alien  being,  and  which  consequently  leaves 
themselves  devoid  of  all  inward  subjectivity  what- 
ever. Thus  animals,  minerals,  and  vegetables  have 
no  one  element  of  a  true  or  living  nature,  neither 
the  inwardly  objective  element,  nor  the  outwardly 
subjective  one;  and  consequently  they  confess 
themselves  with  united  voices  mere  exaggerated 
and  unconscious  types,  images,  semblances,  of  hu- 
man nature,  and  refer  their  whole  vital  reality  ex- 
clusively  to    it.     Humanity    is    in   truth  the  only 


398      THE  ECCLESIASTICAL  MISCONCEPTION. 

authentic  nature  under  the  sun,  and  accordingly- 
alone  involves  a  history.  For  in  hunian  nature 
object  and  subject,  infinite  and  finite,  creator  and 
creature,  are  not  only  blent  equally  and  in  perfect 
hierarchic  order,  but  the  objective  and  infinite 
creative  factor  in  it  lends  such  inspiration  to  its 
finite  subjective  or  created  factor  as  that  man,  the 
proper  subject  of  the  nature,  will  never  rest  until 
he  attains  to  immortal  unity  with  God. 

I  have  now  done  only  scant  justice  to  my  theme  ; 
but  I  ought  before  leaving  the  theme  to  protest 
against  the  ecclesiastical  misconception  of  incar- 
nation which  has  long  been  current  in  the  world, 
and  still  is  current  wherever  the  dead  letter  of 
Christian  doctrine  prevails  over  its  life-giving  spirit. 
It  is  commonly  thought  by  sticklers  for  orthodoxy, 
whatever  be  the  name  they  wear,  —  Catholic  or 
Protestant,  Presbyterian  or  Episcopal,  Baptist  or 
Methodist, — and  whether  they  call  themselves  old 
church  or  new  chtirch,  that  God  incarnates  him- 
self not  in  our  nature  by  any  means,  but  only  in  a 
certain  exceptional  person  of  that  nature,  by  whom 
he  is  forever  removed  from  all  community  with  us, 
its  conventional  persons,  and  even  allowed  to  be 
benignant  to  us  only  in  so  far  as  is  consistent  with 
this  mediatorial  operation.  I  certainly  should  be 
very  sorry  to  throw  any  doubts  upon  the  life  and 
death  and  resurrection  of  Jesus  Christ  as  an  au- 


THE   CHRISTIAN  REVELATION.  399 

thentic  revelation  of  a  truth  never  before  dreamed 
of  by  the  human  mind,  —  namely,  that  God  himself 
is  the  sole  veritable  mother-substance  of  human 
nature,  and  therefore  the  sole  real  subject  of  our 
unreal  or  phenomenal  subjectivity.  But  revelation 
does  not  constitute  truth.  It  only  and  at  most 
bears  witness  to  it,  by  revealing  it,  —  that  is,  by  un- 
veiling it,  or  removing  a  dense  obscuration  which 
it  encounters  in  the  natural  mind  of  men.  Thus 
the  Christian  revelation  finds  men  ignorant  of  the 
highest  truth,  —  that  of  their  natural  relation  to 
God,  which  dominates  all  their  possible  spiritual 
relations  with  him ;  and  it  accordingly  unveils 
these  true  natural  relations  by  removing  the 
masses  of  erroneous  tradition  with  which  man's 
absurd  pride  and  jealousy  had  overlaid  it.  The 
chief  of  these  traditions  —  that  which  mothered  all 
the  rest  —  was  that  God  had  originally  made  men 
of  different  races  or  natures,  and  that  he  had  given 
his  law  to  some  of  these  by  way  of  expressing 
his  supreme  complacency  in  them,  and  vindicat- 
ing their  superior  righteousness.  Jesus  distinctly 
taught  therefore,  in  opposition  to  this,  that  God  had 
made  of  one  blood  all  the  dwellers  on  the  earth ; 
and  that  the  purpose  of  the  divine  law  as  commit- 
ted to  the  keeping  of  the  Jewish  nation  was  not 
to  signalize  either  the  Jew's  natural  or  cultivated 
conformity  to  God  over  the  Gentile,  but  simply  to 


400  WHAT  WE   OWE    TO  IT. 

emphasize  and  carry  home  to  the  conscience  of 
every  man  instructed  by  the  law  a  conviction 
of  his  own  immeasurable  barbarity  and  unright- 
eousness. Jesus  taught,  in  fact,  by  himself  and 
his  apostles,  that  there  was  no  such  thing  possi- 
ble as  a  private,  literal,  or  distinctive  righteousness 
among  men,  —  the  sole  intention  of  the  law  of  the 
Ten  Commandments  being  to  convince  the  right- 
eous man  that  he  grieved  God  in  spirit  tenfold 
more  by  his  absurd  pretension  to  obey  it  than  the 
sinner  had  ever  done  by  his  frankest  indifference 
to  it.  Of  course,  with  this  unworldly  doctrine  in 
regard  to  the  law,  Christ  owed  it  to  his  own  per- 
sonal identification  with  the  Jew  to  give  his  life  in 
attestation  of  it. 

It  is  perfectly  true,  then,  that  if  Christ  had  not 
fulfilled  his  mission  to  God's  earthly  kingdom  by 
dying  a  victim  to  it,  God's  spiritual  kingdom  in 
human  nature  had  never  been  founded.  But  it  is 
equally  true  that  if  God  had  not  been  at  all  events 
spiritually  incarnate  in  outward  nature  before 
Christ  existed,  Christ  could  never  have  imagined 
himself  introducing  a  spiritual  or  living  kingdom 
of  God  on  earth ;  for  in  that  case  he  could  have 
had  no  ground  for  his  intuition  of  the  unity  of  the 
divine  and  human  natures,  upon  which  truth  the 
event  in  question  is  obviously  altogether  contin- 
gent.    And  without  a  deep  intuition  of  this  sort  he 


FALLACY  OF  HYSTERON  PROTERON.        401 

could  never  have  seen  his  way  clear  to  renounce 
his  Jewish  prejudices,  and  consign  the  whole  race 
of  man  as  he  did,  Gentile  and  Jew  quite  equally, 
to  the  uncovenanted  mercy  of  God.  Immortal 
praise,  honor,  and  blessing,  then,  be  to  the  name 
of  Jesus  Christ,  who  first  discovered  and  practically 
avouched  in  his  proper  person  the  unity  of  God 
and  man,  —  the  strict  logical  interdependence  of 
creature  upon  creator  and  of  creator  upon  creature, 
or  the  indissolubly  correlated  existence  of  infinite 
and  finite !  For  no  similar  service  remains  to  be 
done  by  man  to  man.  The  best  we  can  now  do  is 
to  abstain  from  misapplying  what  he  has  done. 

But  this  is  a  very  different  thing  from  alleging 
that  God's  spiritual  incarnation  in  humanity  is  due 
to  Christ's  historic  or  phenomenal  personality,  — 
which  is  an  eminent  example  of  what  logicians  call 
the  {diWdiCy  o{  hysteron  pj-ote7'on,  or  putting  the  cart 
before  the  horse.  If  any  such  idea  could  be  enter- 
tained, it  would  prove  beyond  dispute  that  God 
had  not  from  eternity  been  an  infinite  spirit  or  life 
within  universal  man,  but  a  mere  unrecognized 
person  outside  of  humanity,  who  is  henceforth  to 
be  identified  with  this  other  exceptional  person 
that  revealed  him,  and  thus  by  him  to  be  forever 
sequestrated  from  contact  and  communion  with 
the  race  of  man.  If  God  were  literally  as  well  as 
figuratively  incarnate  in  the  exclusive  person   of 

26 


402  WHAT  CREATION  AIMS  AT.- 

Christ,  then  one  of  two  absurdities  is  true,  —  either 
that  God  is  shorn  of  his  spiritual  infinitude  by  such 
incarnation,  since  to  be  person  is  to  be  essentially 
finite  and  differential  from  all  others  persons ;  or  that 
he  is  not  spiritually  incarnate  in  our  nature,  because 
person  is  the  antagonist  conception  to  nature :  the 
one  being  subject,  the  other  object;  the  one  being 
finite,  the  other  indefinite ;  one  being  flesh,  the  other 
spirit ;  one  being  all  that  is  evil,  the  other  all  that  is 
good.  Both  of  these  issues  are  very  bad,  but  I 
think  the  latter  is  incomparably  the  worse,  for  while 
the  former  robs  God  of  his  formal  good  name,  the 
latter  deprives  him  of  every  substantial  claim  he 
puts  forth  to  our  regard  either  as  creator,  re- 
deemer, or  saviour. 

Any  one,  as  it  seems  to  me,  can  easily  under- 
stand why  creation  should  exact  so  miraculous  a 
method  as  the  incarnation  of  the  creator  in  his 
creature's  nature,  if  he  will  first  of  all  inquire  what 
the  precise  and  perfect  result  is  which  creation, 
considered  as  the  acting  out  of  the  creative  omnipo- 
tence or  infinitude,  aims  at.  The  result  of  creation, 
in  so  far  as  I  am  able  to  deduce  it  from  the  crea- 
tive perfection,  is  to  impart  life  or  being  to  the 
creature,  —  that  is  to  say,  the  creator's  own  life  or 
being,  nothing  less ;  for  we  can  of  course  ac- 
knowledge no  life  or  being  but  his,  unless  indeed 
we  should  be  content  to  abandon  the  hypothesis 


NON-EXISTENCE  INCONCEIVABLE.  403 

of  creation  altogether  as  a  philosophic  explication 
of  existence. 

But  obviously  spiritual  life  or  being  —  that  is,  the 
creator's  own  life  or  being  —  cannot  be  imparted 
to  the  creature  unless  the  creature  exist  to  receive 
it.  And  yet  how  can  the  creature  exist  unless  he 
be  created?  Of  course  he  cannot  really  exist  while 
uncreated,  or  out  of  spiritual  fellowship  with  God ; 
for  if  such  a  thing  were  possible,  it  would  falsify 
the  truth  of  his  creation,  or  prove  that  he  is  at 
bottom  something  else  than  a  creature.  What 
then  is  the  alternative  or  opposite  logical  concep- 
tion of  real  existence  ?  Is  it  the  non-existence  now 
so  much  talked  of  ? 

Assuredly  not,  for  this  non-existence  is  too  bald 
or  literal  to  be  thought  of  or  even  recognized  as 
a  cogitable  thing  by  the  mind.  Non-existence  in  a 
literal  sense  is  no  existence ;  and  what  our  question 
desiderates  in  the  way  of  answer  to  it  is  plainly 
not  no  existence,  but  some  existence  different  from 
real  existence,  which  yet  to  the  subject  of  it  seeins 
identical  with  it.  Existence  of  every  sort,  and 
therefore  non-existence,  must  be  thought  of  by  us 
under  the  category  of  object  or  subject ;  but  literal 
non-existence  is  neither  subjective  nor  objective, 
and  hence  is  inconceivable  by  the  human  mind. 
It  might  prove  a  very  gpod  logical  alternate  to 
the  abstract  conception  of  existence,  if  any  such 


404       THE  ALTERNATE   OF  REAL  EXISTENCE. 

abstract  conception  were  possible.  But  abstract 
existence  itself  is  inconceivable,  and  hence  admits 
no  logical  opposite  or  alternate.  Existence  is  es- 
sentially concrete,  relative,  formal,  requiring  there- 
fore a  formal,  relative,  concrete  alternate ;  so  that 
no  literal  or  absolute  non-existence,  even  if  it  were 
conceivable,  would  appositely  answer  to  it. 

Plainly,  then,  the  only  logical  alternate  (or  dep- 
uty) of  real  existence  being  some  other  sort  of 
existence  than  real,  literal  non-existence,  being 
existence  of  no  sort  either  real  or  unreal,  at  once 
puts  itself  out  of  court  as  such  alternate.  Literal 
non-existence  accordingly  turns  out  an  absurd  or 
contradictory  conception.  It  is  a  mere  stupid,  wil- 
ful, ineffectual  ;;zzi'-conception  of  existence  in  any 
sort  and  every  sort ;  and  its  only  logical  force  is 
to  convict  those  who  doctrinally  formulate  it  as  the 
destiny,  that  is  the  end  or  final  cause,  of  exist- 
ence itself  whether  particular  or  universal,  of  being 
profoundly  incompetent  intellectually  to  discuss 
the  questions  they  have  in  hand.  Their  fatuity 
on  the  present  question  is  just  as  great  as  if  they 
should  make  the  alternate  conception  of  a  house, 
not  a  shed  or  a  barn,  but  a  vacant  piece  of 
ground. 

Thought  is  possible  to  the  thinker  only  as  a 
mental  relation  between  himself  (as  subject)  and 
the  external  world   (as  object).      Thus   existence 


IMPLICATION  OF  NON-EXISTENCE.         405 

conceived  in  thought  is  necessarily  never  simple  or 
absolute,  but  always  composite  or  relative.     Non- 
existence, accordingly,  literally  conceived,  is  an  im- 
possibility to  the  human  mind,  because  it  vacates 
the  very  conditions  upon  which  thought   itself  is 
possible.      If  such  conception  were  any  way  pos- 
sible, it  would  leave  the  subject  unrelated  to  or 
unimpregnated  by  any  object,  and  hence  himself 
non-existent ;    for  in  every  case  the  subject  exists 
from  or  is  energized  by  the  object.     For  when  I 
think  non-existence,  I  of  necessity  think  it  in  rela- 
tion to  myself  or  some  other  actual  existence  ;    and 
this  inevitable  implication  of  subjective  existence 
in  my  conception   of  objective    non-existence   at 
once  defeats  the  conception  or  deprives  it  of  ob- 
jectivity, leaving  it  a  mere  logical  caput  mortuum, 
or  verbal  quibble.     The  conception  thus  logically 
handicapped  can   only  mean,   that  some    existing 
person  or  thing  has  disappeared  frotn  the  field  of 
viy  actual  knowledge.    It  does  not  logically  mean — 
unless  I  who  employ  it  am  an  uncommon  goose 
—  that  the  person  or  thing  in  question  has  disap- 
peared from  existence  absolutely  or  altogether,  but 
only  from  existence  as  actually  known  to  me.     It 
may  be  —  certainly  no  one  can  a  priori  gainsay  the 
possibility  of  it  —  that  men  and  things,  whenever 
they  die  out  of  my  horizon,  die  absolutely,  existing 
no  longer  to  their  own  or  any  other's  sense  or  per- 


406        SPECIAL    AND    GENERAL   EXISTENCE. 

ception.  But  in  that  event  the  laws  or  hmits  of 
our  a  posteriori  knowledge  unqualifiedly  forbid  us 
to  affirm  the  catastrophe.  And  what  the  laws  or 
limits  of  our  understanding  prevent  us  knowing, 
modesty  should  prevent  our  exalting  into  an  arti- 
cle of  faith,  or  even  commending  it  to  others  as 
expedient  to  be  believed. 

Here  is  another  consideration  worth  thinking  of. 
Every  particular  subject  of  existence,  whether  per- 
son or  thing,  exists  only  by  virtue  of  its  inclusion 
in  some  more  common  or  general  form  of  exist- 
ence,—  which  fact  has  led  men  to  conclude,  not 
only  that  a  rigid  solidarity  obtains  between  partic- 
ular or  private  and  common  or  public  existence, 
but  also  that  particular  existences  are  unreal  or 
phenomenal  with  respect  to  the  general  existence 
in  which  they  are  embraced,  and  this  alone  real 
or  substantial  with  respect  to  those.  Now  if  any 
particular  person  (say,  for  example.  Professor 
Clifford)  and  any  particular  thing  (say,  a  horse) 
are  essentially  or  by  their  very  nature  unreal  or 
phenomenal  existences,  having  in  se  no  dignity  but 
that  of  shadows,  it  is  hard  to  see  how  either  of 
them  can  ever  logically  pretend  to  literal  or  abso- 
lute non-existence.  They  have  no  claim  as  yet  to 
literal  or  absolute  existence,  but  only  to  seeming 
or  phenomenal  existence ;  much  less  have  they 
any  inherent  claim  to  being,  —  and  how  a  thing  or 


WHAT  EXISTENCE  IMPLIES.  407 

person  confessedly  void,  to  start  with,  both  of  ex- 
istence and  being,  can  ever  attain  to  the  reaHty  of 
non-existence,  I  cannot  for  the  life  of  me  imagine. 
As  Professor  Clifford,  certainly,  he  cannot  attain  to 
it,  for  Professor  Clifford  is  a  personal  subject  of 
existence ;  much  less  can  it  be  attained  to  as  horse, 
for  the  horse  is  an  impersonal  or  real  object  of 
existence, — and  our  professional  non-existence,  in 
professing  to  ignore  all  existence,  of  course  d  for- 
tiori ignores  all  the  relations  which  existence  is 
under  to  itself  What  claim,  then,  have  they  to 
«(7«-existence  who  as  yet  have  not  drawn  their  ini- 
tial breath  of  existence?  Literal  or  scientific  non- 
existence means  a  cessation  of  existence  to  existing 
subjects,  real  and  personal.  But  if  these  subjects 
have  never  existed,  but  only  have  appeared  (to 
themselves)  to  exist,  how  shall  non-existence 
touch  them?  Will  it  be  under  the  form  of  their 
appearing  (to  themselves)  not  to  exist,  as  before 
they  existed  only  under  the  form  of  appearing  (to 
themselves)  to  exist?  He  alone  can  be  said  really 
to  exist  who  is  spiritually  created,  —  that  is,  en- 
dowed with  divine  life  or  being ;  and  this  no  man 
again  can  be  said  to  be  endowed  with,  who  is  not 
in  relations  of  strict  spiritual  society,  fellowship,  or 
equality  with  all  other  men.  And  non-existence 
predicated  of  such  a  man  can  only  mean  —  when 
it  does  not  mean  the  merest  scientific  bankuin  or 


408  FINITE  EXISTENCE  PHENOMENAL. 

bravado  —  NIRVANA ;  that  is,  his  laying  aside  his 
finite  conditions,  and  his  assumption  of  divine- 
natural  life. 

Literal,  absolute,  objective  non-existence  can 
never  be  attributed  to  a  creature,  because  a  crea- 
ture ex  vi  terminoriim  has  no  real  or  objective  ex- 
istence, but  only  a  phenomenal  or  seeming  and 
subjective  one  in  relation  to  his  creator.  In  short, 
before  either  person  or  thing  can  ever  begin  ab- 
solutely not  to  exist  (that  is,  to  disown  existence 
altogether  both  objective  and  subjective),  they  must 
first  have  had  some  objective  existence  of  their 
own  to  dis-o\NX\.  But  no  person  or  thing  has  ever 
had  an  objective  existence  of  tJieir  own  since  the 
world  has  stood,  simply  because  they  ARE  person 
and  thing,  —  that  is  to  say,  purely  phenomenal  sub- 
ject and  object.  And  how  shall  phenomena  (that 
is,  semblances  or  shadows  of  reality)  ever  be  able 
to  dis-own  a  reality  which  they  plainly  never  ozvned, 
but  were  always  and  at  best  a  mere  projection  or 
reflection  of?  No  person  or  thing  consequently 
can  ever  be  postulated  in  thought  as  coming  into 
a  condition  in  which  they  shall  neither  be  thought 
of  as  subject  related  to  object,  nor  as  object  re- 
lated to  subject.  For  if  any  person  or  thing  be 
found  relating  himself  or  itself  either  objectively 
or  subjectively  to  other  existence,  he  or  it  must 
be  an  existing  subject  or  object,  and  in  cither  case 


ABSTRACT  EXISTENCE  INCONCEIVABLE.   409 

alike  must  freely  disclaim  literal  non-existence, 
cheerfully  dismissing  every  such  claim  as  the  pre- 
rogative of  deity  alone.^ 

Literal  non-existence,  then,  we  may  fairly  con- 
clude is  not  the  logical  alternate  or  opposite  con- 
ception to  real  existence.  To  a  spiritual  or  phi- 
losophic regard  the  two  conceptions  are  not  only 
not  alternate,  but  they  are  in  fact  strictly  identical. 
Here  allow  me  to  remind  the  reader  that  there  is 
no  such  thing  conceivable,  nor  any  such  thing  pos- 
sible in  rerum  iiatiird,  as  abstract  or  absolute  ex- 
istence; and  consequently  no  such  utter  absurdity 
is  conceivable  by  the  mind  as  that  of  abstract  or 
absolute  «^«-existence.  Existence  itself  is  always 
concrete  and  relative,  embracing  only  persons  and 
things,  and  hence  is  comprehensively  known  to  us 
either  2&  personal  or  real.  Accordingly  non-exist- 
ence, as  servilely  shadowing  this  previous  concep- 
tion of  existence,  must  be  altogether  concrete  and 
relative,  being  always  the  non-existence  of  certain 
persons  and  things  we  have  known  or  heard  of. 
What  we  characterize  as  real  or  physical  existence 

^  Literal  or  absolute  nonexistence  (which  is  merely  non-exist- 
ence to  sense)  can  be  alleged  only  of  the  creator,  whose  infinitude 
or  perfection  disqualifies  him  to  exist  save  IN  others  created  from 
himself.  And  he  exists  in  these  with  such  ineffable  good  will,  with 
such  unswerving  tenderness  and  magnanimity,  as  never  to  obtrude 
himself  upon  observation  ;  so  that  no  profoundest  numskull  of  us 
all  has  literally  ever  dreamed  of  suspecting  the  real  or  spiritual 
truth  of  creation. 


4IO     PHYSICAL   AND   PERSONAL   EXISTENCE. 

(so  distinguishing  it  from  personal  or  metaphysic 
existence)  is  invariably  tiling,  being  inversely  re- 
lated to  person  either  as  mineral,  vegetable,  or  ani- 
mal, and  falls  under  the  dominion  of  sense.  And 
what  we  call  personal  existence  (so  distinguishing 
it  from  real)  is  invariably  man,  and  falls  under  the 
empire  of  consciousness.  If,  then,  all  the  existence 
we  know  or  can  conceive  of  is  shut  up  to  persons 
and  things,  and  is  thus  either  strictly  personal  or 
else  real,  there  can  be  no  non-existence  answering 
to  it  which  is  not  also  rigidly  personal  or  else 
real,  and  refuses  therefore  to  be  considered  as 
an  abstract  state  either  of  human  or  brute  life. 
Accordingly,  nothing  can  be  more  stupidly  idle 
and  childish  than  to  talk  of  non-existence  as  a  pos- 
sibility of  man's  general  or  abstract  experience. 

In  truth  non-existence,  —  nirvana  as  it  was  called 
in  early  Hindu  devotion,  —  in  any  true  or  spiritual 
sense  of  the  word,  is  too  subtile  and  refined  a 
conception  for  the  unregenerate  mind  of  man. 
Men  have  never  been  able  accordingly  to  accom- 
plish the  intellectual  conception  of  it,  save  under 
the  gross  material  imagery  of  phenomenal  or  un- 
real existence ;  and  it  has  taken  the  whole  of 
men's  actual  history  to  make  even  this  feeble  ap- 
proximation to  the  truth.  Men  often  wonder  —  I 
myself  doubtless  have  often  done  so  —  what  good 
the  church  has  done  on  earth,  seeing  that  the  force 


■    RELATIONSHIP   OF  CHURCH  AND  SCIENCE.  411 

of  evil  in  all  these  centuries  is  no  way  abated,  but 
in  Christian  countries  (at  all  events)  if  not  quanti- 
tatively augmented  at  least  qualitatively  intensified 
and  rendered  more  pervasive.  It  has  done  human 
life  no  spiritual  good  it  must  be  allowed ;  nor  good 
of  any  kind,  beyond  serving  as  a  literal  remem- 
brancer of  the  divine  name  in  the  earth.  But  I 
think  no  one  can  read  Swedenborg  attentively  with- 
out persuading  himself  that  the  church  has  been 
all  unconsciously  to  itself  a  necessary  precursor  to 
man's  scientific  intellect.  Parent  and  child  never 
know  their  own  relation  to  each  other  save  from 
outside  testimony ;  and  I  do  not  know  whether  the 
partisan  of  the  church  or  the  partisan  of  science 
would  be  loudest  in  the  denial  of  the  providential 
relationship  I  have  alleged  between  them.  But  it 
exists  all  the  same ;  and  any  one  familiar  with  Swe- 
denborg's  disclosure  of  the  regenerate  life  and  the 
arduous  way  it  comes  about  in  men's  bosoms,  will 
hardly  doubt,  I  think,  that  the  present  advanced 
attitude  of  the  scientific  mind  in  regard  to  the 
sheer  phenomenality  of  existence  is  a  natural  out- 
birth  of  men's  heavenly  experience.  Cut  off  from 
the  church  by  the  church's  obstinate  impenitent 
attitude  in  reference  to  divine  ideas,  and  especially 
by  its  utter  indifference  to  the  truth  of  human  fel- 
lowship or  equality,  the  influx  of  heaven  has  long 
been  exclusively  into  the  mind   of  science ;    and 


412     NATURAL   AND  SPIRITUAL   EXISTENCE. 

the  marvellous  activity  of  that  mind  in  the  sphere 
of  discovery  and  invention,  contrasted  with  the 
utter  paralysis  of  the  church-mind  except  in  the 
sphere  of  cant  and  histrionic  piety,  attests  as 
nothing  else  can  the  alert  and  joyful  operation  of 
the  divine  spirit  in  human  affairs. 

Having  now,  I  trust,  in  some  sort  disposed  of 
this  bugbear  of  non-existence,  as  a  plainly  absurd 
or  superstitious  conception  of  the  mind,  I  may  now 
return  to  my  initial  proposition,  which  ran  thus : 
Spiritual  life  or  being  —  that  is  to  say,  the  creator's 
own  life  or  being —  cannot  be  communicated  to  the 
creature,  unless  the  creature  himself  formally  exist 
to  receive  it.  By  the  hypothesis  of  creation  the 
creature  is  bound  to  be  in  himself  exactly  other 
than  —  or  opposite  to  —  the  creator.  But  how  can 
anything  which  in  itself  is  other  than  or  opposite 
to  the  creator  exist  if  it  be  not  created? 

It  cannot  really  or  spiritually  exist,  of  course, 
because  that  would  be  to  exist  in  itself ;  and  we 
cannot  imagine  a  thing  which  in  itself  is  opposite 
to  God  really  or  spiritually  existing  in  God's  uni- 
verse; for  the  divine  name  or  quality  is  one,  and 
knows  no  variableness  nor  shadow  of  turning.  But 
though  the  creature  cannot  exist  really  or  spiritu- 
ally before  he  is  created,  there  is  nothing  to  hinder 
his  existing  actually  or  naturally  before  that  event, 


THE  FICTION  OF  EXTERNAL  NATURE.        413 

provided  always  that  his  creator  possess  infinitude, 
or  be  omnipotent,  —  that  is,  possess  the  power  to 
vivify  the  creature's  nature,  or  essential  quality, 
to  the  creature's  own  eyes,  to  such  an  extent  as  to 
make  it  appear  as  if  it  actually  were,  when  in  very 
truth,  or  spiritually,  it  is  not  and  cannot  possibly 
be.  To  say  the  same  thing  in  more  familiar 
words :  the  creature  cannot  possibly  exist  in  him- 
self until  he  is  spiritually  created,  —  that  is,  regener- 
ated ;  but,  to  use  Swedenborg's  well-worn  phrase, 
he  can  perfectly  well  "  exist  as  in  himself,"  if  only 
God  have  power  spiritually  to  vivify  his  nature,  or 
essential  quality,  —  so  making  it  and  him  actually 
appear  to  be,  when  in  reality  they  neither  of  them 
have  in  themselves,  nor  ever  can  have,  the  least 
pretension  either  to  being  or  existence. 

It  is  abundantly  clear  to  every  one  who  reads 
Swedenborg  with  understanding  (or,  what  is  the 
same  thing,  without  ecclesiastical  goggles),  that 
nature  has  no  particle  of  life  or  being  in  itself,  but 
is  a  mere  effect  of  spiritual  causes  lying  deep 
within  the  mind  of  man,  which  give  it  to  his  senses 
the  semblance  or  similitude  of  being  and  existing 
in  itself  or  absolutely.  Foremost  and  deepest 
among  these  spiritual  causes,  of  course,  is  the  crea- 
ture's dense  and  bottomless  ignorance  of  his  crea- 
tor's spiritual  perfection,  infinitude,  or  omnipotence. 
Taught  at  first  exclusively  by  his  senses,  and  having 


414  DEFINITION  OF  ''THE   WORD." 

therefore  no  experimental  knowledge  of  any  exist- 
ence which  is  not  finite  (as  conditioned  in  space 
and  time),  he  is  forced  willy-nilly  to  measure  his 
creator  by  that  insane  misleading  standard,  and 
practically  make  God  in  his  own  image,  —  that  is, 
conceive  of  him  as  the  most  finite  of  beings,  in 
making  him  the  literal  ALL  of  space  and  time. 
Accordingly  the  earliest  and  latest  lesson  of  men's 
historic  consciousness  is  to  unlearn  its  natural 
prejudice  concerning  God ;  to  disabuse  itself  of 
the  impression  which  nature  makes  upon  it  as  a 
direct  and  not  an  inverse  manifestation  of  creative 
power,  and  come  to  look  upon  her  fixed  immuta- 
ble order  consequently  —  educative  and  nutritive 
as  that  order  undoubtedly  is  to  the  finite  carnal 
mind  in  us — as  a  signally  fallacious  evidence  of 
the  perfect,  adorable  name. 

The  method  which  the  creative  Providence  uses 
to  accomplish  this  necessary  redemption  of  its  con- 
scious creature  from  the  superstitions  incident  to 
his  nativity  is  a  purely  metaphysical  method,  and 
is  furnished  by  what  is  called,  in  old  symbolic  or 
sacred  speech,  the  Word  (of  God),  which  we 
familiarly  but  most  imperfectly  appreciate  as  con- 
stituting the  substance  of  our  technical  or  formal 
Revelation,  Religion,  Regeneration.  This  mystical, 
redemptive,  or  regenerative  Word  is  the  sole  crea- 
tive  substance  of  the  human  mind,  and    its  sole 


"  THE    WORD'S "    UL  TIM  A  TION.  4 1  5 

regulative  form.  The  marvel  of  it  is,  that  it  is 
both  death  and  life,  spiritual  death  and  natural  life, 
—  being  at  once  the  deadest,  most  finite  letter  of 
existence,  and  its  living,  leaping,  infinite  spirit.  It 
is  first  altogether  physical  or  material  in  form, 
carnal,  negative,  prohibitory,  deadly,  and  death- 
bearing;  then  altogether  ;«r/«-physical  or  quasi- 
spiritual,  psychical,  positive,  inspiring,  living  (in 
short),  and  life-giving.  Its  fullest  possible  literal 
expression  is  what  we  term  the  Moral  Law  con- 
tained in  the  Ten  Commandments,  which  to  the 
unemancipated  or  ritual  and  ceremonial  conscience 
is  always  tJie  holy  of  holies.  From  the  bosom  of 
this  fixed,  dark,  bitter,  malignant,  unyielding  earth 
of  legality  it  soars  away,  or  becomes  spiritually 
glorified,  into  the  free  lustrous  heaven  of  human 
society,  fellowship,  or  equality,  shaped  and  eter- 
nally shaping  itself  to  image  the  splendors  of  the 
creative  infinitude,  as  these  splendors  become  re- 
produced through  every  lurid  lineament  and 
feature  of  the  created  consciousness.  For  the 
creature's  native  imperfection,  which  is  the  ground 
of  consciousness  in  him,  and  constitutes  his  spirit- 
iial  identity  as  a  creature,  is  the  sole  conceivable 
measure  and  guarantee  of  his  creator's  perfection  ; 
and  the  only  chance  therefore  which  the  latter  has 
ot  spiritually  vindicating  itself,  or  being  glorified, 
in  the  eyes  of  its  creature,  is  to  show  itself  capable 


41 6  FALLACY  OF  LDEALISM. 

of  bringing  life  out  of  death,  and  converting  man's 
utter  and  sordid  natural  want  into  the  pledge  and 
argument  of  his  abounding,  deathless,  spiritual 
fellowship  with  itself. 

We  men,  all  of  us,  are  naturally  prone  to  con- 
sider subjective  existence  —  existence  in  space  and 
time  —  identical  with  life  or  being.  This  prevalent 
misconception  of  the  great  creative  truth  of  exist- 
ence—  which  is  honest  enough  in  vulgar  minds, 
for  it  is  the  plain  dictate  of  the  senses  —  is  yet  fatal 
to  philosophy,  being  what  alone  keeps  it  forever 
grovelling  in  the  primal  mud  of  things.  For  if 
subjective  or  conscious  existence  be  once  formally 
accepted  by  the  mind  as  universal  substance  or 
being,  then  of  course,  inasmuch  as  existence  logi- 
cally conditions  tJioiight,  nothing  can  be  easier  for 
the  sciolist  in  philosophy  than  to  jump  to  the  iden- 
tity of  thought  and  being,  —  thereby  converting 
this  dread,  august  universe  into  a  wheezing,  gasp- 
ing, asthmatic  parody  of  creation,  termed  Idealism, 
which  infallibly  reduces  the  intellect  pastured  upon 
it  to  the  abortive  activity  of  a  squirrel  in  its  cage. 
But  subjective  or  conscious  existence  —  existence 
conditioned  in  space  and  time  —  is  really  not  iden- 
tical with  life  or  being,  and  can  never  be  made 
to  seem  so  except  by  first  confounding  it  with 
thought  (which  is  a  mere  reflection  of  it)  and  not 
with  feelincf  or  sensation.     For  life  or  being:  is  first 


EXISTENCE  AN  IMAGE   OF  WHAT?         4IJ 

essentially  infinite,  as  having  no  spiritual  limita- 
tion (limitation  ab  intra) ^  and  then  absolute,  as 
having  no  natural  limitation  (limitation  ab  extra) ; 
while  existence  is  essentially ^«zV^,  as  being  limited 
on  its  spiritual  side,  or  from  within,  and  co7itingent 
or  relative,  as  being  limited  on  its  natural  side,  or 
from  without.  And  life  or  being,  which  is  essen- 
tially unlimited  both  spiritually  and  naturally,  both 
inwardly  and  outwardly,  is  necessarily  impersonal 
or  void  of  selfhood,  being  merely  the  force,  creative 
and  constitutive,  that  underlies  and  is  all  existence ; 
while  finite  existence  on  the  other  hand,  being 
simply  nothing  in  itself,  — that  is,  having  in  itself 
neither  spiritual  substance  nor  natural  form,  —  is  of 
necessity  nothing  else  than  personal  or  dramatic ; 
is  in  fact  personality  itself,  that  is,  the  merest  sem- 
blance, figment,  or  shadow  of  reality. 

Now  what  I  want  to  bring  about  by  all  this  pre- 
liminary suppling  of  my  reader's  thought,  is  an 
intelligent  answer  to  this  question:  If  subjective 
or  conscious  existence  (existence  in  space  and 
time)  be  not  identical  with  life  or  being;  if,  as 
we  have  seen,  it  be  a  mere  imagery  or  reflection  of 
life  or  being, — then,  pray,  of  what  precise  life  or 
being  is  it  such  abject  imagery  or  reflection?  We 
know  very  well,  to  begin  with,  that  it  cannot  be  an 
image  of  the  creative  life,  since  the  created  life 
alone  is  adequate  to  image  that;  and  we  equally 
27 


41 8  WHOSE  IMAGE  IS  NATURE? 

well  know  that  it  cannot  be  an  image  of  the  created 
life,  for,  by  the  hypothesis  upon  which  the  question 
proceeds,  the  created  life  is  still  unaccomplished 
actually,  is  still  unrealized  by  the  conscious  crea- 
ture. Besides,  we  must  never  forget  the  implied 
logic  of  creation,  which  practically  associates  crea- 
tor and  creature  indissolubly  together,  so  that  we 
can  never,  save  in  thought,  see  the  one  without 
seeing  the  other,  —  the  latter  being  by  the  former 
exclusively,  the  former  existiitg  exclusively  by  the 
latter.     Whose  image,  then,  is  nature,  after  all? 


[The  Manuscript  stops  at  this  point.  —  Ed.] 


SOME  PERSONAL  RECOLLECTIONS   OF 
CARLYLE. 


SOME  PERSONAL  RECOLLECTIONS  OF 
CARLYLE. 


'T^HOMAS  CARLYLE  is  incontestably  dead  at 
last,  by  the  acknowledgment  of  all  newspa- 
pers. I  had,  however,  the  pleasure  of  an  intimate 
intercourse  with  him  when  he  was  an  infinitely 
deader  man  than  he  is  now,  or  ever  will  be  again, 
I  am  persuaded,  in  the  remotest  seciilum  secidorum. 
I  undoubtedly  felt  myself  at  the  time  every  whit 
as  dead  (spiritually)  as  he  was;  and,  to  tell  the 
truth,  I  never  found  him  averse  to  admit  my  right 
of  insight  in  regard  to  myself  But  I  could  never 
bring  him,  much  as  he  continually  inspired  me  so 
to  do,  to  face  the  philosophic  possibility  of  this 
proposition  in  regard  to  himself  On  the  contrary, 
he  invariably  snorted  at  the  bare  presentation  of 
the  theme,  and  fled  away  from  it,  with  his  free,  re- 
sentful heels  high  in  air,  like  a  spirited  horse 
alarmed  at  the  apparition  of  a  wheelbarrow. 

However,  in  spite  of  our  fundamental  difference 
about  this  burly  life  which  now  is, — one  insisting 


422  RECOLLECTIONS  OF  CARLYLE. 

upon  death  as  the  properer  name  for  it,  the  other 
bent  upon  maintaining  every  popular  illusion  con- 
cerning it,  —  we  had  for  long  years  what   always 
appeared  to  me  a  very  friendly  intercourse ;  and  I 
can  never  show  myself  sufficiently  grateful  to  his 
kindly,    hospitable  manes   for  the   many  hours  of 
unalloyed    entertainment   his    ungrudging   fireside 
afforded  me.     I  should  like  to  reproduce  from  my 
notebook  some  of  the  recollections  and  observa- 
tions with  which  those  sunny  hours  impressed  me 
and  so  amuse,  if  I  can,  the  readers  of  "  The  Atlan- 
tic."    These  reminiscences  were  written  many  years 
ago,  when  the  occurrences  to   which   they   relate 
were  fresh  in  my  memory;   and  they  are  exact,  I 
need  not  say,  almost  to  the  letter.     They  will  tend, 
I  hope  and  am  sure,  to  enhance  the  great  personal 
prestige  Carlyle  enjoyed  during  life ;   for  I  cherish 
the  most  affectionate  esteem  for  his  memory,  and 
could  freely  say  or  do  nothing  to  wound  that  senti- 
ment in  any  honest  human  breast.     At  the  same 
time,    I    cannot   doubt   that   the   proper  effect  of 
much  that  I  have  to  say  will  be  to  lower  the  esti- 
mation many  persons  have  formed  of  Carlyle  as 
a  man  of  ideas.     And  this  I  should  not  be  sorry 
for.     Ideas  are  too    divinely  important   to    derive 
any  consequence  from  the  persons  who  maintain 
them ;  they  are  images  or  revelations,  in  intellec- 
tual   form,    of  divine  or  infinite  good,  and  there- 


RECOLLECTIONS  OF  CARLYLE.  423 

fore  reflect  upon  men  all  the  sanctity  they  possess, 
without  receiving  a  particle  from  them.  This  esti- 
mate of  Carlyle,  as  a  man  of  ideas,  always  struck 
me  as  unfounded  in  point  of  fact.  I  think  his 
admirers,  at  least  his  distant  admirers,  generally 
mistook  the  claim  he  made  upon  attention.  They 
were  apt  to  regard  him  as  eminently  a  man  of 
thought ;  whereas  his  intellect,  as  it  seemed  to  me, 
except  where  his  prejudices  were  involved,  had 
not  got  beyond  the  stage  of  instinct.  They  insist- 
ed upon  finding  him  a  philosopher;  but  he  was 
only  and  consummately  a  man  of  genius.  They 
had  the  fatuity  to  deem  him  a  great  teacher ;  but 
he  never  avouched  himself  to  be  anything  else 
than  a  great  critic. 

I  intend  no  disparagement  of  Carlyle's  moral 
qualities,  in  saying  that  he  was  almost  sure  finally 
to  disappoint  one's  admiration.  I  m.erely  mean 
to  say  that  he  was  without  that  breadth  of  humani- 
tary  sympathy  v/hich  one  likes  to  find  in  distin- 
guished men ;  that  he  was  deficient  in  spiritual  as 
opposed  to  moral  force.  He  was  a  man  of  great 
simplicity  and  sincerity  in  his  personal  manners 
ai]d  habits,  and  exhibited  even  an  engaging  sen- 
sibility to  the  claims  of  one's  physical  fellowship. 
But  he  was  wholly  impenetrable  to  the  solicita- 
tions both  of  your  heart  and  your  understanding. 
I  think  he  felt  a  helpless  dread  and  distrust  of  you 


424  RECOLLECTIONS  OF  CARLYLE. 

instantly  that  he  found  you  had  any  positive  hope 
in  God  or  practical  love  to  man.  His  own  intel- 
lectual life  consisted  so  much  in  bemoaning  the 
vices  of  his  race,  or  drew  such  inspiration  from  de- 
spair, that  he  could  not  help  regarding  a  man  with 
contempt  the  instant  he  found  him  reconciled  to 
the  course  of  history.  Pity  is  the  highest  style 
of  intercourse  he  allowed  himself  with  his  kind. 
He  compassionated  all  his  friends  in  the  measure 
of  his  affection  for  them.  "  Poor  John  Sterling," 
he  used  always  to  say ;  "  poor  John  Mill,  poor  Fred- 
eric Maurice,  poor  Neuberg,  poor  Arthur  Helps, 
poor  little  Browning,  poor  little  Lewes,"  and  so  on ; 
as  if  the  temple  of  his  friendship  were  a  hospital, 
and  all  its  inmates  scrofulous  or  paralytic.  You 
wondered  how  any  mere  mortal  got  legitimately 
endowed  with  a  commiseration  so  divine  for  the 
inferior  race  of  man ;  and  the  explanation  that 
forced  itself  upon  you  was  that  he  enjoyed  an 
inward  power  and  beatitude  so  redundant  as  nat- 
urally to  seek  relief  in  these  copious  outward 
showers  of  compassionate  benediction.  Espe- 
cially did  Carlyle  conceive  that  no  one  could  be 
actively  interested  in  the  progress  of  the  species 
without  being  intellectually  off  his  balance,  and  in 
need  of  tenderness  from  all  his  friends.  His  own 
sympathy  went  out  freely  to  cases  of  individual 
suffering,  and  he  believed  that  there  was  an    im- 


RECOLLECTIONS  OF  CARLYLE.  425 

mense  amount  of  specific  divine  mercy  practicable 
to  us.  That  is  to  say,  he  felt  keenly  whatever 
appealed  to  his  senses,  and  willingly  patronized  a 
fitful,  because  that  is  a  picturesque.  Providence  in 
the  earth.  He  sympathized  with  the  starving 
Spitalfield  weaver;  and  would  have  resented  the 
inhumanity  of  the  slave's  condition  as  sharply  as 
any  one,  if  he  had  had  visual  contact  with  it,  and 
were  not  incited,  by  the  subtle  freemasonry  that 
unites  aristocratic  pretension  in  literature  with  the 
same  pretension  in  politics,  to  falsify  his  human 
instincts.  I  remember  the  pleasure  he  took  in  the 
promise  that  Indian  corn  might  be  found  able  to 
supplant  the  diseased  potato  in  Ireland ;  and  he 
would  doubtless  have  admitted  ether  and  chloro- 
form to  be  exquisitely  ordained  ministers  of  the 
Divine  love.  But  as  to  any  sympathy  with  human 
nature  itself  and  its  inexorable  wants,  or  any  belief 
in  a  breadth  of  the  Divine  mercy  commensurate 
with  those  wants,  I  could  never  discern  a  flavor  of 
either  in  him.  He  scoffed  with  hearty  scorn  at 
the  contented  imbecility  of  Church  and  State  with 
respect  to  social  problems,  but  his  own  indiffer- 
ence to  these  things,  save  in  so  far  as  they  were 
available  to  picturesque  palaver,  was  infinitely 
more  indolent  and  contented.  He  would  have 
been  the  last  man  formally  to  deny  the  Divine  ex- 
istence and  providence ;  but  that  these  truths  had 


426  RECOLLECTIONS  OF  CARLYLE. 

any  human  virtue,  any  living  efficacy  to  redeem 
us  out  of  material  and  spiritual  penury,  I  do 
not  think  he  ever  dreamt  of  such  a  thing.  That 
our  knowledge  of  God  was  essentially  expansive ; 
that  revelation  contemplated  its  own  spiritual 
enlargement  and  fulfilment  in  the  current  facts  of 
human  history,  in  the  growth  and  enlargement  of 
the  human  mind  itself,  —  so  that  Thomas  Carlyle, 
if  only  he  had  not  been  quite  so  stubborn  and 
conceited,  might  have  proved  himself  far  better 
and  not  far  worse  posted  in  the  principles  of  the 
Divine  administration  than  even  Plato  was,  and  so 
have  freed  himself  from  the  dismal  necessity  he 
was  all  his  life  under  to  ransack  the  graves  of  the 
dead,  in  order  to  find  some  spangle,  still  untar- 
nished, of  God's  reputed  presence  in  our  nature,  — 
all  this  he  took  every  opportunity  to  assure  you 
was  the  saddest  bosh.  "  Poor  John  Mill,"  he  ex- 
claimed one  night,  —  "  poor  John  Mill  is  writing 
away  there  in  the  Edinburgh  Review  about  what  he 
calls  the  Philosophy  of  History !  As  if  any  man 
could  ever  know  the  road  he  is  going,  when  once 
he  gets  astride  of  such  a  distracted  steed  as  that !  " 

But  to  my  note-book. 

"  I  happened  to  be  in  Carlyle's  library,  the  other 
day,  when  a  parcel  was  handed  in  which  con- 
tained two  books,  a  present  from  some  American 
admirer.     One  of  the  books  proved  to  be  a  work 


RECOLLECTIONS  OF  CARLYLE.  427 

of  singular  intellectual  interest,  as  I  afterwards 
discovered,  entitled  '  Lectures  on  the  Natural  His- 
tory of  Man,'  by  Alexander  Kinmont,  of  Cin- 
cinnati ;  the  other  a  book  of  Poems.  Carlyle 
read  Mr.  Kinmont's  titlepage,  and  exclaimed : 
*  The  natural  history  of  man,  forsooth  !  And 
from  Cincinnati  too,  of  all  places  on  this  earth ! 
We  had  a  right,  perhaps,  to  expect  some  light 
from  that  quarter  in  regard  to  the  natural  his- 
tory of  the  hog ;  and  I  can't  but  think  that  if  the 
well-disposed  Mr.  Kinmont  would  set  himself  to 
study  that  unperverted  mystery  he  would  em- 
ploy his  powers  far  more  profitably  to  the  world. 
I  am  sure  he  would  employ  them  far  less  weari- 
somely to  me.  There !  '  he  continued,  handing 
me  the  book,  '  I  freely  make  over  to  you  all  my 
right  of  insight  into  the  natural  history  of  man  as 
that  history  dwells  in  the  portentous  brain  of  Mr. 
Alexander  Kinmont,  of  Cincinnati,  being  more 
than  content  to  wait  myself  till  he  condescend  to 
the  more  intelligible  animal.'  And  then  opening 
to  the  blank  leaf  of  the  volume  of  Poems,  and 
without  more  ado,  he  said,  '  Permit  me  to  write 
my  friend  Mrs.  So-and-So's  name  here,  who  per- 
haps may  get  some  refreshment  from  the  poems 
of  her  countryman ;  for,  decidedly,  I  shall  not.' 
When  I  suggested  to  him  that  he  himself  did  noth- 
ing all  his  days  but  philosophize  in  his  own  way, — 


428  RECOLLECTIONS  OF  CARLYLE. 

that  is,  from  the  artist  point  of  view,  or  ground 
of  mere  feeling,  —  and  that  his  prose  habitually 
decked  itself  out  in  the  most  sensuous  garniture 
of  poetry,  he  affected  the  air  of  M.  Jourdain,  in 
Moliere,  and  protested,  half  fun,  half  earnest,  that 
he  was  incapable  of  a  philosophic  purpose  or 
poetic  emotion." 

Carlyle  had  very  much  of  the  narrowness,  intel- 
lectual and  moral,  which  one  might  expect  to  find 
in  a  descendant  of  the  old  Covenanting  stock,  bred 
to  believe  in  God  as  essentially  inhuman,  and  in 
man,  accordingly,  as  exposed  to  a  great  deal  of 
divine  treachery  and  vindictiveness,  which  were 
liable  to  come  rattling  about  his  devoted  ears  the 
moment  his  back  was  tnrned.  I  have  no  idea,  of 
course,  that  this  grim  ancestral  faith  dwelt  in  Car- 
lyle in  any  acute,  but  only  in  chronic,  form.  He 
did  not  actively  acknowledge  it ;  but  it  was  latent 
in  all  his  intellectual  and  moral  personality,  and 
made  itself  felt  in  that  cynical,  mocking  humor 
and  those  bursts  of  tragic  pathos  which  set  off  all 
his  abstract  views  of  life  and  destiny.  But  a  gen- 
uine pity  for  man  as  sinner  and  sufferer  underlay 
all  his  concrete  judgments ;  and  no  thought  of  un- 
kindness  ever  entered  his  bosom  except  for  peo- 
ple who  believed  in  God's  undiminished  presence 
and  power  in  human  affairs,  and  were  therefore 
full    of  hope  in    our   social  future.     A  moral    re- 


RECOLLECTIONS  OF  CARLYLE.  429 

former  like  Louis  Blanc  or  Robert  Dale  Owen,  a 
political  reformer  like  Mr.  Cobden  or  Mr.  Bright, 
or  a  dietetic  reformer  like  the  late  Mr.  Greaves  or 
our  own  Mr.  Alcott,  was  sure  to  provoke  his  most 
acrid  intellectual  antipathy. 

Moral  force  was  the  deity  of  Carlyle's  unscrupu- 
lous worship,  —  the  force  of  unprincipled,  irre- 
sponsible will ;  and  he  was  ready  to  glorify  every 
historic  vagabond,  such  as  Danton  or  Mirabeau, 
in  whom  that  quality  reigned  supreme.  He  hated 
Robespierre  because  he  was  inferior  in  moral  or 
personal  force  to  his  rivals,  being  himself  a  victim 
to  ideas,  —  or,  as  Carlyle  phrased  it,  to  formulas. 
Picturesqueness  in  man  and  Nature  was  the  one 
key  to  his  intellectual  favor;  and  it  made  little 
difference  to  his  artist  eye  whether  the  man  were 
spiritually  angel  or  demon.  Besides,  one  never 
practically  surmounts  his  own  idea  of  the  Divine 
name;  and  Carlyle,  inheriting  and  cherishing  for 
its  picturesque  capabilities  this  rude  Covenanting 
conception,  which  makes  God  a  being  of  the  most 
aggravated  moral  dimensions,  of  a  wholly  super- 
human egotism  or  sensibility  to  his  own  conse- 
quence, of  course  found  Mahomet,  William  the 
Conqueror,  John  Knox,  Frederic  the  Second  of 
Prussia,  Goethe,  men  after  God's  own  heart,  and 
coolly  told  you  that  no  man  in  history  was  ever 
unsuccessful  who  deserved  to  be  otherwise. 


430  RECOLLECTIONS  OF  CARLYLE. 

Too  much  cannot  be  said  of  Carlyle  in  personal 
respects.  He  was  a  man  of  even  a  genial  practi- 
cal morality,  and  unexceptionable  good  neighbor, 
friend,  and  citizen.  But  in  all  larger  or  human 
regards  he  was  a  literalist  of  the  most  unqualified 
pattern,  incapable  of  uttering  an  inspiring  or  even 
a  soothing  word  in  behalf  of  any  struggling  mani- 
festation of  human  hope.  It  is  true,  he  abused 
every  recognized  guide  of  the  political  world  with 
such  hearty  good-will  that  many  persons  claimed 
him  at  once  as  an  intelligent  herald  of  the  new  or 
spiritual  divine  advent  in  human  nature.  But  the 
claim  was  absurdly  unfounded.  He  was  an  ama- 
teur prophet  exclusively,  —  a  prophet  "  on  his 
own  hook,"  or  in  the  interest  of  his  own  irritable 
cuticle,  —  without  a  glimmer  of  sympathy  with  the 
distinctively  public  want,  or  a  gleam  of  insight 
into  its  approaching  divine  relief;  a  harlequin  in 
the  guise  of  Jeremiah,  who  fed  you  with  laughter 
in  place  of  tears,  and  put  the  old  prophetic  sin- 
cerity out  of  countenance  by  his  broad,  persistent 
winks  at  the  by-standers  over  the  foot-lights. 

My  note-book  has  this  record :  — 

"  I  heard  Carlyle,  last  night,  maintain  his  habit- 
ual thesis  against  Mr.  Tennyson,  in  the  presence 
of  Mr.  Moxon  and  one  or  two  other  persons. 
Carlyle  rode  a  very  high  horse  indeed,  being  in- 
spired to  mount  and  lavishly  ply  the  spur  by  Mr. 


RECOLLECTIONS  OF  CARLYLE.  431 

Tennyson,  for  whom  he  has  the  hveliest  regard ; 
and  it  was  not  long  before  William  the  Conqueror 
and  Oliver  Cromwell  were  trotted  out  of  their 
mouldy  cerements,  to  affront  Sir  Robert  Peel  and 
the  Irish  viceroy,  whose  name  escapes  me.  *  Noth- 
ing,* Carlyle  over  and  over  again  said  and  sung,  — 
*  nothing  will  ever  pry  England  out  of  the  slough 
she  is  in,  but  to  stop  looking  at  Manchester  as 
heaven's  gate,  and  free-trade  as  the  everlasting 
God's  law  man  is  bound  to  keep  holy.  The 
human  stomach,  I  admit,  is  a  memorable  neces- 
sity, which  will  not  allow  itself,  moreover,  to  be 
long  neglected ;  and  political  economy  no  doubt 
has  its  own  right  to  be  heard  among  all  our  multi- 
farious jargons.  But  I  tell  you  the  stomach  is  not 
the  supreme  necessity  our  potato-evangelists  make 
it,  nor  is  political  economy  any  tolerable  substitute 
for  the  eternal  veracities.  To  think  of  our  head  men 
believin'  the  stomach  to  be  the  man,  and  legisla- 
tin'  for  the  stomach,  and  compellin'  this  old  Eng- 
land into  the  downright  vassalage  of  the  stomach  ! 
Such  men  as  these,  forsooth,  to  rule  England, — 
the  England  once  ruled  by  Oliver  Cromwell !  No 
wonder  the  impudent  knave  O'Connell  takes  them 
by  the  beard,  shakes  his  big  fist  in  their  faces,  does 
his  own  dirty  will,  in  fact,  with  England,  altogether ! 
Oh,  for  a  day  of  Duke  William  again  ! ' 
"  In   vain   his    fellow   Arcadian    protested   that 


432  RECOLLECTIONS  OF  CARLYLE. 

England  was  no  longer  the  England  of  Duke 
William,  nor  even  of  Oliver  Cromwell,  but  a  to- 
tally new  England,  with  self-consciousness  all  new 
and  unlike  theirs ;  Carlyle  only  chanted  or  canted 
the  more  lustily  his  inevitable  ding-dong,  '  Oh,  for 
a  day  of  Duke  William  again  ! ' 

"  Tired  out  at  last,  the  long-suffering  poet  cried, 

*  I  suppose  you  would  like  your  Duke  William 
back,  to  cut  off  some  twelve  hundred  Cambridge- 
shire gentlemen's  legs,  and  leave  their  owners  squat 
upon  the  ground,  that  they  might  n't  be  able  any 
longer  to  bear  arms  against  him  !  '  '  Ah  !  '  shrieked 
out  the  remorseless  bagpipes,  in  a  perfect  colic 
of  delight  to  find  its  supreme  blast  thus  unwarily 
invoked,  —  *  ah !  that  ivas  no  doubt  a  very  sad 
thing  for  the  duke  to  do;  but  somehow  he  con- 
ceived he  had  a  right  to  do  it,  —  and  upon  the 
whole  he  had  !  '  '  Let  me  tell  your  returning  hero 
one  thing,  then,'  replied  his  practical-minded  friend, 

*  and  that  is  that  he  had  better  steer  clear  of  my 
precincts,  or  he  will  feel  my  knife  in  his  guts  very 
soon.' " 

It  was  in  fact  this  indignant  and  unaffected 
prose  of  the  distinguished  poet  which  alone  em- 
balmed the  insincere  colloquy  to  my  remembrance, 
or  set  its  colors,  so  to  speak. 

Carlyle  was,  in  truth,  a  hardened  declaimer. 
He  talked  in  a  way  vastly  to  tickle  his  auditors. 


RECOLLECTIONS  OF  CARLYLE.  433 

and  his  enjoyment  of  their  amusement  was  lively- 
enough  to  sap  his  own  intellectual  integrity.  Art- 
ist like,  he  precipitated  himself  upon  the  pictur- 
esque in  character  and  manners  wherever  he  found 
it,  and  he  did  not  care  a  jot  what  incidental  interest 
his  precipitancy  lacerated.  He  was  used  to  harp 
so  successfully  on  one  string,  —  the  importance  to 
men  of  doing,  —  and  the  mere  artistic  effects  he 
produced  so  infatuated  him,  that  the  whole  thing 
tumbled  ofif  at  last  into  a  sheer  insincerity,  and  he 
no  longer  saw  any  difference  between  doing  well 
and  doing  ill.  He  who  best  denounced  a  canting 
age  became  himself  its  most  signal  illustration, 
since  even  his  denunciation  of  the  vice  succumbed 
to  the  prevalent  usage,  and  announced  itself  at 
length  a  shameless  cant. 

Of  course  I  have  no  intention  to  represent  this 
state  of  things  as  a  conscious  one  on  Carlyle's  part. 
On  the  contrary,  it  was  a  wholly  unconscious  one, 
betokening  such  a  complete  absorption  of  his  fac- 
ulties in  the  talking  function  as  to  render  him  un- 
affectedly indifferent  to  the  practical  action  which 
such  talk,  when  sincere,  ought  always  to  contem- 
plate. 

I  recur  again  to  my  note-book. 

"  I  was  diverted  last  evening  by  an  account  Car- 
lyle  gave  of  a  conversation  he  had  had  with  Lord 

John  Manners   and   some   other  of  the  dilettanti 

28 


434  RECOLLECTIONS  OF  CARLYLE. 

aristocratic  reformers,  who  had  been  led  by  his 
books  to  suppose  that  he  had  some  practical  no- 
tion, at  all  events  some  honest  desire,  of  reform, 
and  therefore  called  upon  him  to  take  counsel. 
Carlyle  had  evidently  been  well  pleased  by  a  visit 
so  deferential  from  such  distinguished  swells ;  but 
so  far  was  he  from  feeling  the  least  reflective  sym- 
pathy with  the  motive  of  it,  that  he  regarded  the 
whole  affair  as  ministering  properly  to  the  broad- 
est fun.  'They  asked  me,'  he  said,  'with  counte- 
nances of  much  interrogation,  what  it  was,  just,  that 
I  would  have  them  to  do.  I  told  them  that  I  had 
no  manner  of  counsel  to  bestow  upon  them ;  that  I 
did  n't  know  how  they  lived  at  all  up  there  in  their 
grand  houses,  nor  what  manner  of  tools  they  had 
to  work  with.  All  I  knew  was,  I  told  them,  that 
they  must  be  doing  something  erelong,  or  they 
would  find  themselves  on  the  broad  road  to  the 
devil.'  And  he  laughed  as  if  he  would  rend  the 
roof 

"  He  also  spoke  of  a  call  he  had  just  received 
from  the  new  rector  of  the  parish  in  which  he  lived. 
He  had  got  some  previous  intimation  of  the  rec- 
tor's dutiful  design ;  so  that  when  he  came,  Carlyle 
met  him  at  the  door,  hat  on  head  and  cane  in 
hand,  ready  for  a  walk.  He  apologized  to  the 
somewhat  flustered  visitor  for  not  asking  him  in, 
but  the  fact  was  his  health  was  so  poor  that  a 


RECOLLECTIONS  OF  CARLYLE.  435 

walk  in  the  afternoon  had  become  a  necessity  for 
him.  'Would  the  reverend  gentleman  be  going 
towards  the  city,  perhaps?  Yes?  Ah,  then  we 
can  confer  as  we  walk.'  Of  course  the  reverend 
gentleman's  animus  in  proffering  the  visit  had 
been  to  feel  his  doughty  parishioner's  pulse,  and 
ascertain  once  for  all  how  it  beat  towards  religion 
as  by  law  established.  And  equally,  of  course, 
Carlyle  had  not  the  least  intention  of  assisting  at 
any  such  preposterous  auscultation.  The  hopeful 
pair  had  no  sooner  begun  their  trudge,  accord- 
ingly, than  Carlyle  proceeded  to  dismount  his 
antagonist's  dainty  guns  by  a  brisk  discharge 
from  his  own  ruder  batteries.  *  I  have  heard  of 
your  settlement  in  the  parish,'  he  said,  'with  great 
pleasure,  and  my  friends  give  me  great  hope  that 
you  have  a  clear  outlook  at  the  very  serious  work 
that  lies  before  you  here.  The  butcher  up  there 
at  the  corner  of  Sloane  Street  was  a  great  thorn, 
I  am  told,  in  the  side  of  your  predecessor,  and  is 
prepared,  no  doubt,  to  give  you  as  much  trouble 
as  he  can  consistently  with  the  constitution  of  the 
vestry  and  his  own  evangelical  principles ;  and 
the  dissenters  are  notoriously  a  forward,  lively  folk 
in  the  parish.  But  it  is  my  firm  belief  that  if 
these  turbulent  people  could  once  be  brought  to 
know  some  one  who  really  believed  for  himself 
the  eternal  veracities,  and  did  n't  merely  tell  them 


436  RRCOLLECTIONS  OF  CARLYLE. 

of  some  one  else  who  in  old  time  was  thought  to 
have  believed  them,  they  would  all  be  reduced  to 
speedy  silence.  Our  sanguinary  evangehcal  friend 
at  the  corner,  yonder,  would  betake  himself  hope- 
lessly to  his  muttons,  and  dissent  have  no  leg  left 
to  run  upon.  It  is  much,  no  doubt,  to  have  a 
decent  ceremonial  of  worship,  and  an  educated, 
polite  sort  of  person  to  administer  it.  But  the 
main  want  of  the  world,  as  I  gather,  just  now,  and 
of  this  parish  especially,  which  is  that  part  of  the 
world  with  which  I  am  altogether  best  acquainted, 
is  to  discover  some  who  really  knows  God  other- 
wise than  by  hearsay,  and  can  tell  us  what  divine 
work  is  actually  to  be  done  here  and  now  in  Lon- 
don streets,  and  not  of  a  totally  different  work 
which  behooved  to  be  done  two  thousand  years 
ago  in  old  Judsea.  I  have  much  hope  that  you 
are  just  the  man  we  look  for,  and  I  give  you  my 
word  that  you  will  strike  dissent  dumb  if  such 
really  be  the  case.  What?  Your  road  carries 
you  now  in  another  direction?  Farewell,  then! 
I  am  glad  to  find  that  we  are  capable  of  so  good 
an  understanding  with  each  other.' " 

Carlyle  was  full  of  glee  in  recounting  this  ex- 
ploit, and  his  laugh  like  the  roar  of  a  mountain 
brook  when  the  snow  melts  in  spring.  And  it  is 
funny,  no  doubt,  to  fancy  how  hopelessly  asquint 
the  rector's  intellectual  vision  was  bound  to  be- 


RECOLLECTIONS  OF  CARLYLE.  437 

come  as  he  pursued  his  solitary  walk  homeward. 
But,  after  all,  there  is  nothing  higher  than  fun  in 
either  of  these  experiences.  It  is  capital  fun,  I 
admit,  and  I  enjoyed  Carlyle's  enjoyment  of  it  in 
this  light  as  much  as  anybody  could,  I  only 
allow  myself  to  characterize  it  thus  strictly  in 
order  to  show  that  Carlyle  is  not  at  all  prima- 
rily the  man  of  humanitary  ideas  and  sympathies 
which  many  people  fancy  him  to  be.  Of  course 
he  has  a  perfect  right  to  be  what  he  is,  and  no 
one  has  a  keener  appreciation  of  him  in  that  real 
light  than  I  have.  I  only  insist  that  he  has  no 
manner  of  right  to  be  reported  to  us  in  a  false 
light,  as  we  shall  thereby  lose  the  lesson  which 
legitimately  accrues  to  us  from  his  immense  per- 
sonality. Lord  John  Manners  is  a  sincere  senti- 
mentalist, who  really  believes  that  by  reviving  old 
English  sports,  and  putting  new  vigor  into  existing 
Christmas,  May-day,  and  other  festivities,  and  in- 
augurating generally  a  sort  of  systematic,  voluntary 
humility  on  the  part  of  the  aristocracy  towards 
the  dependent  classes,  revolution  may  be  indefi- 
nitely staved  off,  and  England  saved  from  the 
terrors  of  a  speedy  "  ki»ngdom  come."  And  Car- 
lyle, if  ideas  were  really  uppermost  with  him, 
would  have  treated  his  visitors'  weaknesses  ten- 
derly, and  shown  them,  by  reference  to  certain 
well-established  principles  of  human  nature, —  the 


438  RECOLLECTIONS  OF  CARLYLE. 

indomitable  instinct  of  freedom,  for  example,  — • 
how  very  disproportionate  their  remedy  was  to 
the  formidable  disease  in  hand.  As  it  was,  he  sent 
them  away  unblessed,  and,  so  far  as  he  could  effect 
such  a  result,  disheartened. 

The  easily  baffled  rector,  too,  clearly  ought 
not,  on  the  hypothesis  of  Carlyle  being  the  en- 
lightened person  his  admirers  think  him,  to  have 
so  alarmed  Carlyle  by  his  approach  as  to  ravish 
him  from  his  study,  and  make  him  descend  to  the 
level  of  the  street,  in  order  to  secure  the  advan- 
tage of  his  adversary,  in  case  there  should  be  need 
of  a  retreat.  Were  he  a  man  of  true  sympathy 
with  human  want,  and  of  earnest  thought  as  to  the 
best  way  of  appeasing  it,  as  his  admirers  believe 
him  to  be,  how  frankly  would  he  have  met  the 
rector's  friendly,  harmless  overture,  and  said  to 
him :  "  Yes,  my  friend,  come  to  me  as  often  as  you 
will,  and  let  us  reason  together  of  righteousness 
and  temperance  and  judgment  to  come;  for  I, 
as  well  as  you,  have  hope  in  God  that  he  will 
show  himself  adequate,  in  ways  we  little  dream  of, 
to  our  sore  public  and  private  need,  and  would 
gladly  communicate  thereupon  with  any  like  hope- 
ful man," 

I  was  not  in  the  least  surprised  at  Carlyle's 
puerile  gabble  in  Macmillan's  Magazine  about  the 
American  Iliad ;  for  he  always  felt  himself  quali- 


RECOLLECTIONS  OF  CARLYLE.  439 

fied  a  priori  to  crack  and  pick  any  philosophic 
nut  extant ;  to  discuss  and  determine  the  toughest 
providential  problem  conceivable,  without  a  taking 
of  testimony  or  investigation  of  any  sort,  but  by 
sheer  force  of  genius  or  aesthetic  instinct.  One 
might  often  have  felt  tempted  to  use  a  more  sum- 
mary word,  so  much  do  the  effects  of  the  two 
things  in  certain  circumstances  resemble  each  other. 
But  I  conceive  it  would  have  been  very  unjust  to 
Carlyle.  He  was  not  constitutionally  arrogant; 
he  was  a  man  of  real  modesty;  he  was  even,  I 
think,  constitutionally  diffident.  He  was  a  man, 
in  short,  whom  you  could  summer  and  winter 
with,  without  ever  having  your  self-respect  wan- 
tonly affronted  as  it  habitually  is  by  mere  con- 
ventional men  and  women.  He  was,  to  be  sure, 
a  very  sturdy  son  of  earth,  and  capable  at  times 
of  exhibiting  the  most  helpless  natural  infirmity. 
But  he  would  never  ignore  nor  slight  your  human 
fellowship  because  your  life  or  opinions  exposed 
you  to  the  reproach  of  the  vain,  the  frivolous,  the 
self-seeking.  He  would  of  course  curse  your 
gods  ever  and  anon  in  a  manful  way,  and  scoff 
without  mercy  at  your  tenderest  intellectual  hopes 
and  aspirations ;  but  upon  yourself  personally,  all 
the  while,  —  especially  if  you  should  drink  strong 
tea  and  pass  sleepless  nights,  or  suffer  from  tobac- 
co, or  be  menaced  with  insanity,  or  have  a  gnaw- 


440  RECOLLECTIONS  OF  CARLYLE. 

ing  cancer  under  your  jacket, — he  would  have 
bestowed  the  finest  of  his  wheat.  He  might  not 
easily  have  forgiven  you  if  you  used  a  vegetable 
diet,  especially  if  you  did  so  on  principle;  and  he 
would  surely  have  gnashed  his  teeth  upon  you  if 
you  should  have  claimed  any  scientific  knowledge 
or  philosophic  insight  into  the  social  problem,  —  the 
problem  of  man's  coming  destiny  upon  the  earth. 
But  within  these  limits  you  would  have  felt  how 
truly  human  was  the  tie  that  bound  you  to  this 
roaring,  riotous,  most  benighted,  yet  not  unbenig- 
nant  brother.  Leave  England,  above  all,  alone; 
let  her  stumble  on  from  one  slough  of  despond  to 
another,  so  that  he  might  have  the  endless  serene 
delight  of  walloping  her  chief  "  niggers,"  —  Peel, 
Palmerston,  Russell,  Brougham,  and  the  rest,  — and 
he  would  dwell  forever  in  friendly  content  with 
you.  But  only  hint  your  belief  that  these  imbecile 
statesmen  were  the  true  statesmen  for  the  time, 
the  only  men  capable,  in  virtue  of  that  very  imbe- 
cility, of  truly  coworking  with  the  Providence  that 
governs  the  world,  and  is  guiding  it  full  surely  to 
a  haven  of  final  peace  and  blessedness,  and  he 
would  fairly  deluge  you  with  the  vitriol  of  his 
wrath.  No ;  all  that  can  be  said  for  Carlyle  on 
this  score  is,  that,  having  an  immense  eye  for 
color,  an  immense  genius  for  scenic  effect,  he 
seized  with  avidity  upon  every  crazy,  time-stained. 


RECOLLECTIONS  OF  CARLYLE.  44- 

dishonored  rag  of  personality  that  still  fluttered  in 
the  breeze  of  history,  and  lent  itself  to  his  magi- 
cal tissues ;  and  he  did  not  like  that  any  one  should 
attempt  to  dispute  his  finery  with  him.  The  habit 
was  tyrannous,  no  doubt,  but  no  harm,  and  only 
amusement,  could  have  come  of  it;  least  of  all 
would  it  have  pushed  him  to  his  melancholy 
"  latter-day  "  drivel,  had  it  not  been  for  the 
heartless  people  who  hang,  for  their  own  private 
ends,  upon  the  skirts  of  every  pronounced  man 
of  genius,  and  do  their  best,  by  stimulating  his 
vanity,  to  make  him  feel  himself  a  god. 

I  again  have  recourse  to  my  note-book. 

"  I  happened  to  be  at  Mr.  Carlyle's  a  Sunday 
or  two  since,  when  a  large  company  was  present, 
and  the  talk  fell  upon  repudiation,  which  Jefferson 
Davis  and  Mississippi  legislation  are  bringing  into 
note.  Among  others  a  New  Yorker  was  present, 
to  whom  his  friends  give  the  title  of  General,  for 
no  other  reason  that  I  can  discover  but  to  signify 
that  he  is  nothing  in  particular,  —  an  agreeable- 
mannered  man,  however,  with  something  of  that 
new-born  innocence  of  belief  and  expectation  in 
his  demeanor  and  countenance  which  Englishmen 
find  it  so  hard  to  do  justice  to  in  Americans;  and 
he  was  apparently  defending,  when  I  went  in,  our 
general  repute  for  honesty  from  the  newspaper 
odium    which    is    beginning    to    menace    it.       Mr. 


442  RECOLLECTIONS   OF  CARLYLE. 

Henry  Woodman,  —  I  will  call  him, —  from  Mas- 
sachusetts, was  also  present ;  an  amiable,  excellent 
man,  full  of  knowledge  and  belief  in  a  certain  way, 
who  in  former  times  was  a  Unitarian  clergyman 
in  good  standing,  but  having  made  what  seemed 
to  him  a  notable  discovery,  namely,  that  there  is 
no  personal  devil,  —  none,  at  least,  who  is  over 
six  feet  in  height,  and  who  therefore  is  not  essen- 
tially amenable  to  police  discipline,  —  he  forth- 
with snaps  his  fingers  at  the  faded  terror,  drops 
his  profession,  and  betakes  himself  to  agriculture, 
for  which  he  has  a  passion.  He  overflows  with 
good  feeling,  and  is  so  tickled  with  the  discovery 
he  has  made  of  old  Nick's  long  imposture,  that 
he  never  makes  an  acquaintance  without  instantly 
telling  him  of  it,  nor  ever  keeps  one  without  in- 
stantly, in  season  and  out  of  season,  reminding 
him  of  it.  He  had  saturated  Carlyle's  outward 
ear  with  the  intelligence,  but  to  no  inward  profit. 
For  Carlyle's  working  conception  of  the  Deity 
involves  so  much  of  diabolism  that  the  decease 
and  sepulture  of  a  thousand  legitimate  old  bogies, 
authentically  chronicled  in  '  The  Times,'  would 
hardly  enliven  his  sombre  imagination ;  and  he 
entertains  a  friendly  contempt  and  compassion, 
accordingly,  for  the  emancipated  Mr.  Woodman, 
which  are  always  touching  to  me  to  witness.  The 
evening    in  question   my   attention   was  suddenly 


RECOLLECTIONS  OF  CARLYLE.  443 

arrested   by  Carlyle   saying   somewhat   loudly   to 

General that  we  were  all  on  our  way  to  the 

devil  in  America,  and  that  unless  we  turned  a  short 
corner  we  should  infallibly  bring  up  in  that  peril- 
ous company.  Mr.  Woodman  was  talking,  at  the 
moment,  with  his  hostess,  of  whom  he  is  a  deserved 
favorite,  at  the  other  extremity  of  the  room;  but 
he  would  have  heard  the  name  of  his  vanished 
adversary  had  it  been  pronounced  in  a  whisper. 
The  grateful  sound  no  sooner  reached  his  ear, 
accordingly,  than  he  averted  himself  from  his 
companion,  and  cried  out,  delighted,  '  What  devil 
do  you  speak  of,  Mr.  Carlyle  ? '  '  What  devil,  do 
you  ask?'  Carlyle  fairly  roared  back  in  reply. 
'What  devil,  do  you  ask,  Mr.  Woodman?  The 
devil,  Mr.  Woodman,  that  has  been  known  in 
these  parts  from  the  beginning,  and  is  not  likely 
soon  to  become  unknown,  —  the  father  of  all  liars, 
swindlers^  and  repiidiators,  Mr.  Woodman !  The 
devil  that  in  this  Old  World  boasts  a  very  numer- 
ous though  unconscious  progeny,  and  in  your 
New  World,  Mr.  Woodman,  seems,  from  all  ac- 
counts, to  be  producing  a  still  more  numerous 
and  still  more  unconscious  Oii  e  !  That  is  just  the 
devil  I  mean,  Mr.  Woodman;  and  woe  be  to  you 
and  yours  the  day  you  vote  liivi  lifeless !  ' 

"  Mr.  Woodman  was  discouraged,  and  at  once 
reverted  to  his  quiet  colloquy  with  his  softer  com- 


444  RECOLLECTIONS  OF  CARLYLE. 

panion,  while  the  rei.st  of  us  profited  by  the  exhila- 
rating  breeze   he   had    so   suddenly  conjured  up. 

'  Speaking  of  the  evil  one,'  General hastened 

to  say,  '  I  have  been  visiting  to-day  subterranean 
London,  its  sewers,  and  so  forth,'  —  and  the  con- 
versation soon  fell  into  its  ordinary  undulations. 
But  earnest  as  Carlyle's  reply  to  his  friend  un- 
doubtedly sounded,  any  listener  would  have  very 
much  mistaken  the  truth  of  the  case  if  he  had 
supposed  that  it  meant  anything  more  than  his 
hopeless,  helpless,  and  consequently  irritable  way 
of  contemplating  social  facts  and  tendencies.  Car- 
lyle  does  not  believe,  of  course,  in  the  literal  per- 
sonality of  the  devil  near  so  much  as  Mr.  Wood- 
man does ;  that  is,  he  believes  in  it  so  little  as  to 
disdain  the  trouble  of  denying  it.  But  he  has  a 
profound  faith  that  there  is  at  the  head  of  affairs 
some  very  peremptory  person  or  other,  who  will 
infallibly  have  his  own  will  in  the  end,  or  override 
all  other  wills ;  and  he  is  able,  consequently,  to 
variegate  his  conversation  and  writing  with  lurid 
lights  that  seem  most  orthodox  and  pious  to  inno- 
cent imaginations,  and  would  make  the  ghost  of 
John  Knox  roll  up  the  whites  of  his  eyes  in  grate- 
ful astonishment.  Whatever  be  Carlyle's  interest 
in  any  question  of  life  or  destiny,  he  talks  so  well 
and  writes  so  well  that  it  can  hardly  escape  being 
all  swallowed  up  in  talk  or  writing;   and  he  would 


RECOLLECTIONS  OF  CARLYLE.  445 

regard  you  as  a  bore  of  the  largest  calibre  if,  talk- 
ing in  the  same  sense  with  him,  you  yet  did  not 
confine  yourself  to  talk,  but  went  on  to  organize 
your  ideas  in  some  appropriate  action." 

You  would  say,  remembering  certain  passages 
in  Carlyle's  books,  —  notably  his  "  Past  and  Present" 
and  his  pamphlet  on  Chartism,  —  that  he  had  a  very 
lively  sympathy  with  reform  and  a  profound  senti- 
ment of  human  fellowship.  He  did,  indeed,  dally 
with  the  divine  ideas  long  enough  to  suck  them 
dry  of  their  rhetorical  juices,  but  then  dropped 
them,  to  lavish  contempt  on  them  ever  after  when 
anybody  else  should  chance  to  pick  them  up  and 
cherish  them,  not  for  their  rhetorical  uses,  but 
their  absolute  truth.  He  had  no  belief  in  society 
as  a  living,  organizing  force  in  history,  but  only  as 
an  empirical  necessity  of  the  race.  He  had  no 
conception  of  human  brotherhood  or  equality  as 
the  profoundest  truth  of  science,  disclosing  a  hell 
in  the  bosom  wherever  it  is  not  allowed  to  reveal 
a  heaven,  but  only  as  an  emotional  or  sentimental 
experience  of  happily  endowed  natures.  On  the 
contrary,  he  used  to  laugh  and  fling  out  his  scorn- 
ful heels  at  the  bare  suggestion  of  such  a  thing, 
much  as  a  tropical  savage  would  laugh  and  fling 
out  his  heels  at  the  suggestion  of  frozen  rivers. 
He  looked  at  the  good  and  evil  in  our  nature  as 
final  or  absolute  quantities,  and  saw  no  way,  con- 


446  RECOLLECTIONS  OF  CARLYLE. 

sequently,  of  ever  utilizing  the  evil  element.  He 
saw  no  possible  way  of  dealing  with  weak  races 
but  by  reducing  them  to  slavery;  no  way  of  deal- 
ing successfully  with  evil  men  but  by  applying 
lynch  law  to  them,  and  crushing  them  out  of 
existence.  In  short  he  had  not  the  least  concep- 
tion of  history  as  a  divine  drama,  designed  to  edu- 
cate man  into  self-knowledge  and  the  knowledge  of 
God ;  and  consequently  could  never  meet  you  on 
any  ground  of  objective  truth,  but  only  on  that  of 
your  subjective  whim  or  caprice.  It  was  this  in- 
tellectual incapacity  he  was  under  to  esteem  truth 
for  its  own  sake,  or  value  it  except  for  the  per- 
sonal prestige  it  confers,  that  made  him  so  impo- 
tent to  help  a  struggling  brother  on  to  daylight, 
and  fixed  him  in  so  intense  and  irritable  a  literary 
j^^-consciousness. 

Again  to  my  note-book. 

"  I  went  to  see  Carlyle  last  night  to  get  permis- 
sion to  bring  a  friend  —  J.  McK.  —  to  see  him  the 
next  day,  who  had  it  much  at  heart  to  thank  him 
for  the  aid  and  comfort  his  books  had  given  him, 
years  ago,  away  out  on  the  shores  of  Lake  Erie. 
Would  he  treat  the  friend  kindly,  in  case  I  brought 
him ;  or  would  he  altogether  pulverize  him,  as 
he  had  crewhile  pulverized  a  certain  person  we 
both  wotted  of  ?  Nay,  nay  ;  he  would  be  all  Chat 
Chesterfield    himself  could    desire   of    polite    anc^ 


RECOLLECTIONS  OF  CARLYLE.  447 

affable  !  Well,  then,  what  would  be  the  most  aus- 
picious hour?  When  would  the  inward  man  be 
most  unpuckered?  —  for  I  should  really  be  sorry 
to  see  my  friend  go  home  with  his  ardent  thirst  of 
worship  all  unslaked.  *  Ask  Jane,'  was  the  reply. 
'  What  she  appoints,  I  will  give  my  diligence  to 
conform  to.'  Mrs.  Carlyle,  who  sat  upon  the  sofa 
beside  us,  obligingly  entered  into  my  anxieties, 
and  said,  '  You  shall  bring  your  friend  to-morrow, 
after  dinner,  or  between  two  and  three  o'clock ; 
for  I  often  observe  that  is  a  very  placid  hour  with 
the  creature,  and  I  think  we  may  reckon  upon  a 
great  success  if  we  will  just  avail  ourselves  of  it.' 
Accordingly,  we  did  not  fail  to  be  in  the  little 
Chelsea  parlor  this  afternoon,  at  the  hour  ap- 
pointed, my  friend  and  I,  —  not  without  a  certain 
prophetic  tremor,  I  can  assure  you,  on  my  part, 
for  his  raised  expectations.  As  we  entered  the 
room  Carlyle  stood  upon  a  chair,  with  his  back  to 
us,  vainly  trying,  to  all  appearance,  to  close  his 
inside  window-shutters.  He  did  not  at  all  desist 
on  our  entrance,  but  cried  out,  *  Is  that  you,  J., 
and  have  you  brought  your  friend  McK.  with 
you?  I  don't  know  whether  he  is  at  all  related 
to  my  friend,  Sandy  McK.,  of  Glasgow.  If  he  is, 
he  can't  be  related  to  a  worthier  man.'  By  this 
time  he  had  reduced  his  refractory  window-shutter 
to  order,  and  descended  from  his  perch  to  take  a 


448  RECOLLECTIONS  OF  CARLYLE. 

first  look  at  his  guest.  My  friend  of  course  made 
a  neat  little  salutatory  expressive  of  his  intellectual 
obligations,  and  the  need  he  felt  to  make  some 
sort  of  avowal  of  them,  before  he  again  set  his 
face  westward.  '  I  don't  believe  a  word  of  it !  ' 
said  Carlyle,  as  my  friend  gracefully  perorated. 
'  I  don't  believe  a  word  of  it !  I  don't  believe  that 
I  ever  helped  any  man.  I  don't  believe  that  any 
man  ever  helped  another.  It  is  indeed  unspeaka- 
bly folly  to  conceive  such  a  thing.  The  only  man 
I  ever  found  —  and  him  I  didn't  find  —  who  seemed 
to  me  sincere  in  such  a  thought  was  a  ship  captain, 
some  time  ago,  who  wrote  to  me  to  say,  without 
giving  me  name  or  address,  that  he  had  called  his 
vessel  the  Thomas  Carlyle,  because  he  had  got 
some  good,  he  fancied,  from  my  books.  I  thought 
it  behooved  me  to  look  the  man  up,  so  I  traversed 
the  London  docks  from  end  to  end,  asking  of  the 
sailors  ever  and  anon  if  they  knew  any  vessel  in 
those  parts  bearin'  the  portentous  name  of  Thomas 
Carlyle;  but  it  was  all  in  vain,  and  I  returnee 
home  persuaded  that,  whatever  else  might  betide 
me,  I  should  probably  never  see  under  this  sun 
the  extraordinary  individual  who  had  named  his 
vessel  the  Thomas  Carlyle.'  You  may  easily  im- 
gine  the  sudden  pallor  that  came  over  my  friend's 
ruddy  devotion.  It  was  not  that  Carlyle  intended 
out   of  pure  wantonness  to  mock  the   admiration 


RECOLLECTIONS  OF  CARLYLE.  449 

he  lives  to  conciliate.  It  was  only  that  he  chanced 
at  that  moment  to  feel  the  ghastly  disproportion 
which  existed  betAveen  his  real  aims  and  those 
lent  him  by  the  generous  faith  of  his  disciples; 
and  instead  of  doing  penance  by  himself  for  the 
diversity,  he  preferred  to  make  the  devotee  pay  his 
share  of  the  penalty." 

Carlyle  used  to  strike  me  as  a  man  of  genius 
or  consummate  executive  faculty,  and  not  prima- 
rily of  sympathy  or  understanding.  Every  one 
is  familiar  with  this  discrimination.  We  all  know 
some  one  or  other  who  is  a  genius  in  his  way,  or 
has  a  power  of  doing  certain  things  as  no  one  else 
can  do  them,  and  as  arrests  our  great  admiration. 
And  yet,  as  likely  as  not,  this  person  so  marvel- 
lously endowed,  is  a  somewhat  uncomfortable  per- 
son apart  from  his  particular  line  of  action.  Very 
possibly,  and  even  probably,  he  is  domineering 
and  irritable  to  the  pitch  of  insanity  in  his  per- 
sonal intercourse  with  others,  and  his  judgments 
are  apt  to  be  purely  whimsical,  or  reflect  his  own 
imperious  will.  We  admire  the  genius  in  his  own 
sphere  of  work  or  production,  and  feel  a  divine 
force  in  him  that  moves  the  world.  But  at  the 
same  time  we  are  persuaded  that  there  is  some- 
thing in  us,  not  half  so  resplendent  as  genius, 
which  is  yet  a  vast  deal  better;  and  that  is  spiri- 
tual   character,  or  a    cultivated    deference    to    the 

29 


450  RECOLLECTIONS  OF  CARLYLE. 

humblest  forms  of  goodness  and  truth.  At  best, 
genius  is  only  a  spiritual  temperament  in  man, 
and  therefore,  though  it  serves  as  an  excellent 
basis  for  spiritual  character,  should  yet  never  be 
confounded  with  it.  The  genius  is  God's  spoiled 
child  upon  earth;  woe  be  unto  him,  if  he  look 
upon  that  indulgence  as  consecrating  him  for  the 
skies  as  well !  Character,  or  spiritual  manhood, 
is  not  created,  but  only  communicated.  It  is  not 
our  birthright,  but  is  only  brought  about  with  our 
own  zealous  privity,  or  solicitous  concurrence  in 
some  sort.  It  is  honestly  wrought  out  of  the 
most  literal  conformity  to  the  principles  of  uni- 
versal justice.  It  puts  up  with  no  histrionic  piety, 
tramples  under  foot  the  cheap  humility  of  the 
prayer-book  and  the  pew,  and  insists  upon  the 
just  thing  at  the  just  moment,  under  pain  of  eter- 
nal damnation,  —  which  means,  an  abandonment 
to  the  endless  illusions  of  self-love.  Hence  it  is, 
that,  while  the  genius  cuts  such  a  lustrous  figure 
in  the  eyes  of  men,  and  wins  oftentimes  so  loud 
a  renown,  we  yet  know  many  a  nameless  person 
whom  we  value  more  than  a  raft  of  genii,  because 
we  confide  without  stint  in  their  living  truth,  their 
infinite  rectitude  of  heart  and  understanding.  We 
like  the  genius,  or  whatsoever  makes  life  glorious, 
powerful,  divine,  on  Sundays  or  holidays ;  but  we 
prefer   the  ordinary,    unconscious,    unostentatious 


RECOLLECTIONS  OF  CARLYLE.  45  I 

stuff  which  alone  keeps  it  sweet  and  human  on  all 
other  days. 

It  always  appeared  to  me  that  Carlyle  valued 
truth  and  good  as  a  painter  does  his  pigments,  — 
not  for  what  they  are  in  themselves,  but  for  the 
effects  they  lend  themselves  to  in  the  sphere  of 
production.  Indeed,  he  always  exhibited  a  con- 
tempt, so  characteristic  as  to  be  comical,  for  every 
one  whose  zeal  for  truth  or  good  led  him  to  ques- 
tion existing  institutions  with  a  view  to  any  prac- 
tical reform.  He  himself  was  wont  to  question 
established  institutions  and  dogmas  with  the  ut- 
most license  of  scepticism,  but  he  obviously 
meant  nothing  beyond  the  production  of  a  cer- 
tain literary  surprise,  or  the  enjoyment  of  his  own 
aesthetic  power.  Nothing  maddened  him  so  much 
as  to  be  mistaken  for  a  reformer,  really  intent 
upon  the  interests  of  God's  righteousness  upon 
the  earth,  which  are  the  interests  of  universal  jus- 
tice. This  is  what  made  him  hate  Americans, 
and  call  us  a  nation  of  bores,  — that  we  took  him 
at  his  word,  and  reckoned  upon  him  as  a  sincere 
well-wisher  to  his  species.  He  hated  us,  because 
a  secret  instinct  told  him  that  our  exuberant  faith 
in  him  would  never  be  justified  by  closer  knowl- 
edge ;  for  no  one  loves  the  man  who  forces  him 
upon  a  premature  recognition  of  himself.  I  recall 
the    uproarious    mirth   with   which    he    and    Mrs. 


452  RECOLLECTIONS  OF  CARLYLE. 

Carlyle  used  to  recount  the  incidents  of  a  visit  they 
had  received  from  a  young  New  England  woman, 
and  describe  the  earnest,  devout  homage  her  cred- 
ulous soul  had  rendered  him.  It  was  her  first 
visit  abroad,  and  she  supposed — poor  thing!  — 
that  these  famous  European  writers  and  talkers, 
who  so  dominated  her  fancy  at  a  distance,  really 
meant  all  they  said,  were  as  innocent  and  lovely 
in  their  lives  as  in  their  books ;  and  she  no  sooner 
crossed  Carlyle's  threshold,  accordingly,  than  her 
heart  offered  its  fragrance  to  him  as  liberally  as 
the  flower  opens  to  the  sun.  And  Carlyle,  the 
inveterate  comedian,  instead  of  being  humbled  to 
the  dust  by  the  revelation  which  such  simplicity 
suddenly  flashed  upon  his  own  eyes  of  his  essen- 
tially dramatic  genius  and  exploits,  was  irritated, 
vexed,  and  outraged  by  it  as  by  a  covert  insult. 
His  own  undevout  soul  had  never  risen  to  the 
contemplation  of  himself  as  the  priest  of  a  really 
infinite  sanctity ;  and  when  this  clear-eyed  barba- 
rian, looking  past  him  to  the  substance  which 
informed  him,  made  him  feel  himself  for  the  mo- 
ment the  transparent  mask  or  unconscious  actor 
he  was,  his  self-consciousness  took  the  alarm. 
She  sat,  the  breathless,  silly  little  maid,  between 
him  and  Mrs.  Carlyle,  holding  a  hand  of  each, 
and  feeling  the  while  her  anticipations  of  Paradise 
on  earth  so  met  in  this  foolish  encounter  that  she 


RECOLLECTIONS  OF  CARLYLE.  453 

could  not  speak,  but  barely  looked  the  pious  rap- 
ture which  filled  her  soul. 

One  more  extract  from  my  note-book,  and  I 
shall  have  done  with  it,  for  it  is  getting  to  be  time 
to  close  my  paper.  I  mentioned  a  while  since  the 
name  of  O'Connell,  and  apropos  of  this  name  I 
should  like  to  cite  a  reminiscence  which  sets  Car- 
lyle  in  a  touchingly  amiable  spiritual  light. 

"Sunday  before  last  I  found  myself  seated  at 
Carlyle's  with  Mr,  Woodman  and  an  aid-de-camp 
of  Lord  Castlereagh,  who  had  just  returned  from 
India,  and  was  entertaining  Mrs.  Carlyle  with  any 
amount  of  anecdotes  about  the  picturesque  people 
he  left  behind  him.     To  us  enter  Dr.  John  Carlyle 

and  a  certain  Mr. ,  a  great  burly  Englishman, 

who  has  the  faculty  (according  to  an  aside  of  Mrs. 
Carlyle,  dexterously  slipped  in  for  my  informa- 
tion) of  always  exciting  Carlyle  to  frenzy  by  talk 
about  O'Connell,  of  whom  he  is  a  thick-and-thin 
admirer.  The  weather  topic  and  the  health  in- 
quiry on  both  sides  were  soon  quietly  disposed  of; 
but  immediately  after,  Mrs.  Carlyle  nudged  my 
elbow,  and  whispered  in  a  tone  of  dread,  '  Now 
for  the  deluge !  '  For  she  had  heard  the  nasty 
din  of  politics  commencing,  and  too  well  antici- 
pated the  fierce  and  merciless  melee  that  was  about 
to  ensue.  It  speedily  announced  itself,  hot  and 
heavy;     and    for   an    hour   poor    breathless    Mr. 


454  RECOLLECTIONS  OF  CARLYLE. 

Woodman  and  myself,  together  with  the  awe- 
struck aid-de-camp,  taking  refuge  under  the  skirts 
of  outraged  Mrs.  Carlyle,  assisted  at  a  lit  de  justice 
such  as  we  had  none  of  us  ever  before  imagined. 
At  last  tea  was  served,  to  our  very  great  relief 
But,  no !  the  conflict  was  quite  unexhausted,  ap- 
parently, and  went  on  with  ever  new  alacrity, 
under  the  inspiration  of  the  grateful  souchong. 
Mrs.  Carlyle  had  placed  me  at  her  left  hand,  with 
belligerent  or  bellowing  Mr.  Bull  next  to  me ; 
and  as  her  tea-table  chanced  to  be  inadequate  to 
the  number  of  her  guests  we  were  all  constrained 
to  sit  in  very  close  proximity.  Soon  after  our 
amiable  and  estimable  hostess  had  officiated  at 
the  tea-tray,  I  felt  her  foot  crossing  mine  to  reach 
the  feet  of  my  infuriated  neighbor  and  implore 
peace !  She  successfully  reached  them,  and  suc- 
ceeded fully,  also,  in  bringing  about  her  end,  with- 
out any  thanks  to  him,  however.  For  the  ruffian 
had  no  sooner  felt  the  gentle,  appealing  pressure 
of  her  foot,  than  he  turned  from  Carlyle  to  meet  her 
tender  appeal  with  undisguised  savagery.  'Why 
don't  you,'  he  fiercely  screamed,  — '  why  don't 
you,  Mrs.  Carlyle,  touch  your  husband's  toe?  I 
am  sure  he  is  greatly  more  to  blame  than  I  am ! ' 
The  whole  company  immediately  broke  forth  in  a 
burst  of  uncontrollable  glee  at  this  extraordinary 
specimen  of  manners,   Carlyle  himself  taking  the 


RECOLLECTIONS  OF  CARLYLE.  455 

lead ;  and  his  amiable  convive^  seeing,  I  suppose, 
the  mortifying  spectacle  he  had  made  of  himself, 
was  content  to  '  sing  small '  for  the  remainder 
of  the  evening. 

"  Anyhow,  I  heard  nothing  distressing  while  I 
remained.  But  happening  to  have  made  an  ap- 
pointment with  Mrs.  Carlyle  for  the  next  day,  I 
went  down  to  Chelsea  in  the  morning,  and  found 
my  friend  seated  with  her  stocking-basket  beside 
her,  diligently  mending  the  gitdemaii's  hose.  I 
asked  her  if  any  dead  had  been  left  on  the  battle- 
field the  night  before,  and  she  replied,  'Yes;  I 
never  saw  Carlyle  more  near  to  death  than  he  is 
this  dismal  Monday  morning !  I  must  first  tell 
you  that  he  has  been  a  long  time  in  the  habit  of 

going  to  Mr. 's  in Street,   for  a  Sunday 

dinner,  protesting  that,  though  his  friends  have 
no  acquaintance  with  books  or  literary  people, 
he  never  pays  them  a  Sunday  visit  without  feeling 
himself  renovated  against  all  the  soil  of  the  week, 
and  never  comes  away  without  being  baptized 
anew  in  unconsciousness.  Now,  yesterday  he  had 
gone  to  this  friend's  to  dine,  and  when  he  re- 
turned, about  three  or  four  o'clock,  he  said  to 
me,  "  Jane,  I  am  henceforth  a  regenerate  man,  and 
eschew  evil  from  this  hour  as  the  snake  does  its 
skin !  "  This  he  said  with  conviction  and  earnest 
purpose,   as  if  that   lovely  family  had  inoculated 


456  RECOLLECTIONS  OF  CARLYLE. 

him  with  the  blessed  life  !  What  a  scathing  sense 
of  weakness,  then,  besets  the  poor  man  this  morn- 
ing !  Such  a  contrast  between  the  placid  noon  of 
yesterday  and  the  horrid,  hideous  night !  ' 

"  To  my  inquiry  whether  anything  had  further 
occurred  of  disagreeable  after  I  had  left,  Mrs.  Car- 
lyle  replied,  *  Everything  went  on  swimmingly  till 
about  eleven  o'clock,  when  it  pleased  your  unfor- 
tunate countryman,  Mr.  Woodman,  to  renew  the 
war-whoop  by  saying,  "  Let  us  return  a  moment  to 
O'Connell."  If  the  talk  was  frightful  before  you 
left,  what  did  it  now  become?  Altogether  un- 
bearable; and  when  about  twelve  o'clock  John 
Carlyle  got  up  to  go,  taking  his  friend  along  with 
him,  Carlyle,  lighting  his  candle  to  see  the  com- 
pany to  the  door,  stretched  out  his  hand  to  his 
late  antagonist,  with  the  frank  remark,  "  Let  by- 
gones be  bygones !  "  The  latter  scorned  to  take 
it,  saying,  "  Never  again  shall  I  set  foot  in  this 
house !  "  I  knew  how  cruelly  Carlyle  would  feel 
this  rebuff,  and  scarcely  dared  to  glance  at  him 
as  he  came  upstairs  after  lighting  his  guests  out; 
but  when  I  did  look,  there  he  stood  at  the  door 
of  the  room,  holding  the  candle  above  his  head, 
and  laughing  with  bitter,  remorseful  laughter,  as 
he  repeated  the  words  of  the  morning:  Jane,  I 
am  henceforth  a  regenerate  man,  and  eschew  evil 
from  this  hour  as  the  snake  does  its  skin ! '  " 


RECOLLECTIONS  OF  CARLYLE.  4$? 

Alas,  poor  Yorick! 

The  main  intellectual  disqualification,  then,  of 
Carlyle,  in  my  opinion,  was  the  absoluteness  with 
which  he  asserted  the  moral  principle  in  the  hu- 
man bosom,  or  the  finality  which  his  grim  imagi- 
nation lent  to  the  conflict  of  good  and  evil  in 
men's  experience.  He  never  had  the  least  idea, 
that  I  could  discover,  of  the  true  or  intellectually 
educative  nature  of  this  conflict,  as  being  purely 
ministerial  to  a  new  and  final  evolution  of  Jmman 
nature  itself  into  permanent  harmony  with  God's 
spiritual  perfection.  He  never  expressed  a  sus- 
picion, in  intercourse  with  me,  —  on  the  contrary, 
he  always  denounced  my  fervent  conviction  on 
the  subject  as  so  much  fervent  nonsense,  —  that 
out  of  this  conflict  would  one  day  emerge  a  posi- 
tive or  faultless  life  of  man,  which  would  other- 
wise have  been  impracticable;  just  as  out  of  the 
conflict  of  alkali  and  acid  emerges  a  neutral  salt 
which  would  otherwise  be  invisible.  On  the  con- 
trary, he  always  expressed  himself  to  the  effect 
that  the  conflict  was  absolutely  valid  in  itself ; 
that  it  constituted  its  own  end,  having  no  other 
result  than  to  insure  to  good  men  the  final  domin- 
ion of  evil  men,  and  so  array  heaven  and  hell  in 
mere  chronic  or  fossil  antagonism.  The  truth  is, 
he  had  no  idea  but  of  a  carnal  or  literal  rectitude 
in    human    nature,  —  a   rectitude   secured    by   an 


458  RECOLLECTIONS  OF  CARLYLE. 

unflinching  inward  submission  to  some  command- 
ing ojitward  or  personal  authority.  The  law,  not 
the  gospel,  was  for  him  the  true  bond  of  inter- 
course between  God  and  man,  and  between  man 
and  man  as  well.  That  is  to  say,  he  believed  in 
our  moral  instincts,  not  as  constituting  the  mere 
carnal  body  or  rude  husk  of  our  spiritual  manhood, 
but  its  inmost  kernel  or  soul ;  and  hence  he  habi- 
tually browsed  upon  "  the  tree  of  the  knowledge  of 
good  and  evil,"  as  if  it  had  been  divinely  com- 
mended to  us  for  that  purpose,  or  been  always 
regarded  as  the  undisputed  tree  of  life,  not  of 
death.  He  was  mother  Eve's  own  darling  can- 
tankerous Thomas,  in  short,  the  child  of  her 
dreariest,  most  melancholy  old  age ;  and  he 
used  to  bury  his  worn,  dejected  face  in  her  pe- 
nurious lap,  in  a  way  so  determined  as  forever 
to  shut  out  all  sight  of  God's  new  and  better 
creation. 

Of  course  this  is  only  saying  in  other  words 
that  Carlyle  was  without  any  sense  of  a  tiniversal 
providence  in  human  affairs.  He  supposed  that 
God  Almighty  literally  saw  with  our  eyes,  and 
had  therefore  the  same  sympathy  for  strong  men 
that  we  ourselves  have,  and  the  same  disregard 
for  feeble  men.  And  he  conceived  that  the  world 
was  governed  upon  the  obvious  plan  of  giving 
strong  men  sway,  and  hustling  weak  men  out  of 


RECOLLECTIONS  OF  CARLYLE.  459 

sight.  In  the  teeth  of  all  the  prophets  who  have 
ever  prophesied,  he  held  that  the  race  is  always  to 
the  swift,  the  battle  always  to  the  strong.  Long 
before  Mr.  Darwin  had  thought  of  applying  the 
principle  of  natural  selection  to  the  animal  king- 
dom, Carlyle,  not  in  words  but  in  fact,  had  ap- 
plied it  to  the  spiritual  kingdom,  proclaiming  as 
fundamental  axioms  of  the  divine  administration, 
"  Might  makes  right,  and  devil  take  the  hindmost." 
He  thought  the  divine  activity  in  the  world  ex- 
ceptional, not  normal,  occasional,  not  constant; 
that  God  worked  one  day  out  of  seven,  and  rested 
the  remaining  six ;  thus,  that  he  had  a  much 
nearer  relation  to  holiday  persons  like  Plato  or 
Shakspeare  or  Goethe  than  he  has  to  every- 
day people  like  the  negro,  the  prison  convict,  the 
street-walker.  In  this  shallow  way  the  great  mys- 
tery oi  godliness,  which  the  angels  desire  to  look 
into,  became  to  his  eyes  as  flat  as  any  pancake ; 
Deity  himself  being  an  incomparable  athlete,  or 
having  an  enormous  weight  of  selfhood,  so  that  all 
his  legitimate  children  are  born  to  rule.  Ruler 
of  men,  this  was  Carlyle's  most  rustical  ideal  of 
human  greatness.  Rule  on  the  one  hand,  obedi- 
ence on  the  other,  this  was  his  most  provincial 
ideal  of  human  society  or  fellowship,  and  he 
never  dreamt  of  any  profounder  key  to  the  inter- 
pretation of  our  earthly  destiny.     The  strong  man 


460  RECOLLECTIONS  OF  CARLYLE. 

to  grow  ever  more  strong,  the  feeble  man  to  grow 
ever  more  feeble,  until  he  is  finally  extinguished,  — 
that  was  his  very  pedantic  and  puerile  conception 
of  the  rest  that  remains  to  the  people  of  God. 
The  glorification  of  force,  ability,  genius,  "  that  is 
the  one  condition,"  he  always  said,  "  in  my  poor 
opinion,  of  any  much-talked-of  millennial  felicity 
for  this  poor  planet,  —  the  only  thing  which  will 
ever  rescue  it  from  being  the  devil's  churchyard 
and  miserable  donkey  pasture  it  now  for  the  most 
part  turns  out  to  be." 

The  divine  hieroglyphics  of  human  nature  are 
never  going  to  be  deciphered  in  this  sensuous, 
childish  way.  The  divine  gait  is  not  lop-sided. 
As  his  special  glory  is  to  bring  good  07U  of  evil, 
one  can  easily  see  that  he  has  never  had  a  thought 
of  exalting  one  style  of  man  outwardly  or  per- 
sonally above  another  style,  but  only  of  reducing 
both  styles  to  a  just  humility.  "  The  tree  of  knowl- 
edge of  good  and  evil  "  is  a  tree  which  belongs  ex- 
clusively to  the  garden  of  our  immature,  sensuous, 
or  scientific  intelligence,  and  it  will  not  bear  trans- 
plantation to  a  subtler  spiritual  soil.  Our  moral  ex- 
perience has  always  been,  in  purpose,  intellectually 
educative.  It  is  adapted,  in  literal  or  outward  form, 
to  our  rude  and  crude  or  nascent  scientific  intelli- 
gence, and  as  intended  to  afford  us,  in  the  absence 
of  any  positive  conceptions  of  infinitude,  at  least  a 


RECOLLECTIONS  OF  CARLYLE.  461 

negative  spiritual  conception,  that  so  we  might  learn 
betimes  a  modest  or  humble  conceit  of  ourselves. 
Now,  Carlyle's  precise  intellectual  weakness  was 
that  he  never  had  a  glimpse  of  any  distinctively 
divine  ends  in  human  nat?ire,  but  only  in  the  more 
or  less  conflicting  persons  of  that  nature;  and 
hence  he  was  even  childishly  unable  to  justify  the 
advance  of  the  social  sentiment  in  humanity,  — 
the  sanest,  deepest,  most  reconciling  sentiment 
ever  known  to  man's  bosom.  To  escape  Carlyle's 
fatuity,  then,  and  avoid  the  just  reproach  which 
he  is  fated  to  incur  in  the  future,  we  must  give 
up  our  hero-worship,  or  sentimental  reverence  for 
great  men,  and  put  ourselves  in  the  frankest  prac- 
tical harmony  with  the  Providence  that  governs 
the  world.  Nor  is  this  half  so  difficult  a  task  as 
our  leading  lazy-bones  in  Church  and  State  would 
have  us  believe.  Our  leaders  should  be  called  our 
misleaders,  in  fact,  so  often  do  they  betray  us  as 
to  the  principles  of  Divine  administration.  The 
world  is  not  administered,  as  Carlyle  and  Louis 
Napoleon  would  have  us  fancy,  upon  the  princi- 
ple of  making  everything  bend  to  the  will  of  the 
strongest.  On  the  contrary,  the  true  will  of  the 
Strongest  is,  and  always  has  been,  to  efface  him- 
self before  every  the  meanest  creature  he  has 
made,  and  his  profoundest  joy,  not  to  have  His 
'swn  way,  but  to  give  way  to  every  such  creature, 


462  RECOLLECTIONS  OF  CARLYLE. 

provided,  first  of  all,  there  be  nothing  in  that  way 
injurious  to  the  common  weal.  In  fact,  the  one 
principle  of  Divine  administration  in  human  affairs, 
as  we  learn  from  Christianity,  is  to  disregard  high 
things,  and  mind  only  low  things;  to  cortemn 
whatsoever  is  highly  esteemed  among  men,  and 
exalt  or  utilize  whatsoever  they  despise  and  reject 
Henry  Carey  has  been  long  and  vainly  showing 
us  that  a  proper  economy  of  the  world's  waste  is 
all  we  need  to  inaugurate  in  the  material  sphere 
the  long-promised  millennium.  And  Liebig  pub- 
lished, not  many  years  ago,  what  he  calls  a  legacy 
to  his  fellows,  in  which  he  proves,  first,  that  Euro- 
pean agriculture  is  fast  becoming  so  fruitless  by 
the  exhaustion  of  soils,  that,  unless  some  remedy 
be  provided,  Europe  must  soon  go  into  hopeless 
physical  decrepitude;  and,  secondly,  that  men  have 
the  amplest  remedy  against  this  contingency  in 
their  own  hands,  by  simply  economizing  the  sew- 
age of  large  towns,  and  restoring  to  the  land  the 
mineral  wealth  their  food  robs  it  of.  Only  think 
of  this  !  Europe  actually  depends  for  her  mate- 
rial salvation  upon  a  divine  redemption  mercifully 
stored  up  for  her  in  substances  which  her  most 
pious  churchmen  and  wisest  statesmen  have  al- 
ways disdained  as  an  unmitigated  nuisance  !  If 
any  one  thing  be  more  abhorrent  than  another  to 
our  dainty  sensual  pride;   if  one  thing  more  than 


RECOLLECTIONS  OF  CARLYLE.  463 

another  has  been  permitted  to  fill  our  selfish,  stu- 
pid life  with  disgust  and  disease, —  it  is  this  waste 
material  of  the  world,  which  we,  in  our  insanity, 
would  gladly  hurry  into  the  abyss  of  oblivion ! 
And  yet  in  God's  munificent  wisdom  this  self-same 
odious  waste  teems  with  incomparably  greater  ren- 
ovation to  human  society  than  all  the  gold,  silver, 
and  precious  stones  ever  dug  from  earth  to  mad- 
den human  lust  and  enslave  human  weakness ! 

Now,  what  is  the  philosophic  lesson  of  this 
surprising  scientific  gospel?  When  science  thus 
teaches  us,  beyond  all  possibility  of  cavil,  that 
the  abject  waste  and  offscouring  of  the  planet, 
which  we  ourselves  are  too  fastidious  even  to 
name,  is  fuller  of  God's  redeeming  virtue,  of  his 
intimate  presence,  than  all  its  pomp  of  living 
loveliness,  than  all  its  vivid  garniture  of  mineral, 
vegetable,  and  animal  beauty,  what  philosophic 
bearing  does  the  lesson  exert?  It  is  the  very 
gospel  of  Christ,  mind  you,  reduced  to  the  level 
of  sense,  or  turned  into  a  scientific  verity.  What, 
then,  is  its  urgent  message  to  men's  spiritual  un- 
derstanding? Evidently  this,  and  nothing  else; 
namely,  that  human  life  is  now  so  full  of  want, 
so  full  of  sorrow,  so  full  of  vice,  —  that  human 
intercour*:'^  is  now  so  full  of  fraud,  rapacity,  and 
violence,  only  because  the  truth  of  human  so- 
ciety, human    fellowship,  human   equality,   which 


464  RECOLLECTIONS  OF  CARLYLE:. 

alone  reveals  the  infinitude  of  God's  love,  enjoys 
as  yet   so  stinted  a   recognition,   while    race  con- 
tinues to  war  with  race,  and  sect  with  sect.     So- 
ciety has  as  yet  achieved  only  a  typical  or  provi- 
sional existence,  by  no  means  a  real  or  final  one. 
Every   clergyman    is    the    professional    fellow   or 
equal  of  every  other;    every  lawyer  or  physician 
enjoys  the  equal  countenance  of  his  professional 
brethren,  —  but  no  man  is  yet  sacred  to  his  brother 
man  by  virtue  of  his   manhood  simply,  but  only 
by  virtue  of  some  conventional  or  accidental  ad- 
vantage.     The    vast     majority    of    our    Christian 
population  are  supposed  to  be  properly  excluded 
from  an    equal    public    consideration    with    their 
more    fortunate    compeers,   by   the    fact   of    their 
poverty  or  enforced  subjection   to    natural   want, 
and  the  personal  limitations  which  such  want  im- 
poses;   while   outside  of  Christendom    the  entire 
mass  of  mankind  is   shut  out  of  our  respect  and 
sympathy,  if  not  exposed  to  the  incursions  of  our 
ravenous  cupidity,  because  they  do  not  profess  the 
exact  faith  we  profess,  nor  practise  the  literal  max- 
ims  we   practise.     Thus,  the  righteousness  of  the 
letter  prevails  everywhere  over  that  of  the  spirit, 
everywhere  betrays    and    condemns    our  divinest 
natural  manhood  to  dishonor  and  death ;  the  inevi- 
table consequence  being,  that  God's  living   energy 
in  our  nature,  disdaining  as  it  does  anything  but  a 


RECOLLECTIONS  OF  CARLYLE.  465 

universal  operation,  is  shut  up  to  the  narrowest, 
most  personal  and  penurious  dimensions,  —  is  as- 
sociated, in  fact,  with  the  meanest,  most  meagre 
bosoms  of  the  race;  while  the  great  mass  of 
men,  in  whose  hearts  and  brains  its  infinite  splen- 
dors lie  seething  and  tumultuous  for  an  outlet, 
are  cast  out  of  our  Christian  fellowship,  are  dis- 
honored and  reviled,  as  so  much  worthless  rubbish 
or  noisome  excrement. 

It  is  quite  time  then,  in  my  opinion,  that  we 
should  cease  minding  Carlyle's  rococo  airs  and 
affectations ;  his  antiquated  strut  and  heroics,  re- 
minding us  now  of  John  Knox  and  now  of  Don 
Quixote ;  his  owlish,  qbscene  hootings  at  the  end- 
less divine  day  which  is  breaking  over  all  the  earth 
of  our  regenerate  nature.  We  have  no  need  that 
he  or  any  other  literary  desperado  should  en- 
lighten us  as  to  the  principles  of  God's  adminis- 
tration, for  we  have  a  more  sure  word  of  prophecy 
in  our  own  hearts,  —  a  ray  of  the  light  which  illu- 
mines every  man  who  comes  into  the  world,  and. 
is  ample,  if  we  follow  it,  to  scatter  every  cloud 
that  rests  upon  the  course  of  history.  We  are  all 
of  us  parents,  potentially  or  actually,  and  although 
we  represent  the  infinite  paternity  most  imper- 
fectly, we  do  nevertheless  represent  it.  And  how 
do  we  administer  our  families?  Do  we  bestow 
our  chief  solicitude  upon  those  of  our  children 


466  RECOLLECTIONS  OF  CARLYLE. 

who  need  it  least,  or  upon  those  who  need  it  most ; 
upon  those  who  are  most  up  to  the  world's  re- 
morseless demands  upon  them,  or  those  who  fall 
short  of  those  demands?  I  need  not  wait  for  an 
answer.  All  our  base,  egotistic  pride  may  go  to 
the  former,  but  we  reserve  all  our  care  and  tender- 
ness for  those  whom  an  unkind  nature,  as  we  say, 
consigns  to  comparative  indigence  and  ignominy. 
Now,  God  has  absolutely  no  pride  and  no  ego- 
tism, being  infinitely  inferior  to  us  in  both  those 
respects.  But  then,  for  that  very  reason,  he  is 
infinitely  our  superior  in  point  of  love  or  tender- 
ness. I  do  not  believe  that  the  tenderness  we 
bestow  upon  our  prodigals  is  worthy  to  be  named 
in  the  same  day  with  that  which  he  bestows  upon 
his.  I  do  not  believe,  for  my  part,  that  he  ever 
lifts  a  finger,  or  casts  a  glance,  to  bless  those  of 
his  offspring  who  resemble  him,  or  are  in  sym- 
pathy with  his  perfection,  —  for  such  persons  need 
no  blessing,  are  themselves  already  their  own  best 
blessing,  —  but  reserves  all  his  care  and  tenderness 
for  the  unblessed  and  disorderly,  for  the  unthank- 
ful and  the  evil,  for  those  who  are  disaffected  to 
his  righteousness,  and  make  a  mock  of  his  peace. 
I  doubt  not,  if  a  celestial  visitor  should  come 
to  us  to-morrow  in  the  flesh,  we  should  engage 
the  best   rooms   for  him    at   the    Parker   House; 


RECOLLECTIONS  OF  CARLYLE.  467 

supply  his  table  with  the  fat  of  the  land ;  place  a 
coach-and-four  at  his  beck,  whisk  him  off  to  the 
State  House;  introduce  him  to  ail  the  notabil- 
ities, ecclesiastic,  political,  scholastic,  financial ; 
give  him  a  public  dinner,  a  box  at  the  opera, 
the  most  conspicuous  pew  in  church ;  in  short, 
do  everything  our  stupidity  could  invent  to  per- 
suade him,  at  all  events,  that  we  regarded  him  as 
an  arrival  from  the  most  uncelestial  corner  of  the 
universe.  Well,  we  have  in  truth  at  this  time,  and 
all  the  time,  no  celestial  visitant  in  the  flesh  among 
us,  but  a  divine  resident  in  the  spirit,  whom  the 
heaven  of  heavens  is  all  unmeet  to  contain,  and 
who  yet  dwells  —  awaiting  there  his  eventual  glo- 
rious resurrection  —  a  patient,  despised,  discred' 
ited,  spiritual  form  in  every  fibre  of  that  starved 
and  maddened  and  polluted  flesh  and  blood  which 
feeds  our  prisons  and  fattens  our  hospitals,  and 
which  we  have  yet  the  sagacity  to  regard  as  the 
indispensable  base  of  our  unclean  and  inhuman 
civilization.  And  it  is  my  fixed  conviction,  that 
unless  we  speedily  consent  to  recognize  his  hu- 
miliated form  in  that  loathsome  sepulchre,  and 
give  emancipation  to  it  there,  first  of  all,  by  bring- 
ing this  waste  life,  this  corrupt  and  outcast  force 
of  Christendom,  into  complete  social  recognition,  or 
clothing  it  with  the  equal  garments  of  praise  and 


468  RECOLLECTIONS  OF  CARLYLE. 

salvation  that  hide  our  own  spiritual  nakedness,  we 
shall  utterly  miss  our  historic  justification,  and 
baffle  the  majestic  Providence  which  is  striving 
through  us  to  inaugurate  a  free,  unforced,  and 
permanent  order  of  human  life. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY. 


A  list  of  Mr.  James's  published  works  is  here  appended : 

What  Constitutes  the  State:  A  Lecture  delivered  before 
the  Young  Men's  Association  of  Albany.  New  York :  1846. 
pp.  59. 

Tracts  for  the  New  Times.  No.  I.  Letter  to  a  Sweden- 
borgian.     New  York :  1847.     pp.24. 

MoRALisM  and  Christianity;  or,  Man's  Experience  and 
Destiny.  In  three  Lectures.  New  York:  Redfield,  1850. 
Sm.  8vo.    pp.  184. 

Lectures  and  Miscellanies.  New  York :  Redfield,  1852. 
Sm.  8vo.    pp.  442. 

The  Nature  of  Evil,  considered  in  a  letter  to  the  Rev.  Edward 
Beecher,  D.D.  author  of  "The  Conflict  of  Ages."  New  York: 
Appleton,  1855.    i2nio.     pp.  348. 

The  Church  of  Christ  not  an  Ecclesiasticism  :  A  Letter 
of  Remonstrance  to  a  member  of  the  soi-disant  New  Church. 
Second  Edition.  London:  W.  White,  1856.  Sm.  8vo.  pp.156. 
[The  first  edition  seems  to  have  been  published  in  pamphlet 
form  in  New  York  a  short  time  previous.] 

Christianity  the  Logic  of  Creation.  London  :  Wm.  White, 
1857.    Sm.  Bvo.    pp.264.    (New  York  :  Appleton,  1857.) 

The  Social  Significance  of  our  Institutions  :  An  Oration 
delivered  by  request  of  the  citizens  at  Newport,  R.  I.,  July  4, 
1861.  Boston:  Ticknor  and  Fields,  1861.  8vo.  pamphlet, 
pp.  47. 

Substance  and  Shadow;  or,  Morality  and  Religion  in 
THEIR  Relation  to  Life  :  An  Essay  on  the  Physics  of  Crea- 
tion. Boston :  Ticknor  and  Fields,  1863.  8vo.  pp.539.  (Sec- 
ond Edition,  1866.) 


470  BIBLIOGRAPHY. 

The  Secret  of  Swedenborg  :  Being  an  elucidation  of  his  doc- 
trine of  the  Divine  Natural  Humanity.  Boston  :  Fields, 
Osgood,  &  Co.,  1869.    8vo.    pp.  XV,  243. 

Society  the  Redeemed  Form  of  Man,  and  the  Earnest  of 
God's  Omnipotence  in  Human  Nature:  Affirmed  in  Let- 
ters to  a  Friend.  Boston:  Houghton,  Osgood,  &  Co.,  1879. 
8vo.     pp.  485. 

Of  magazine  articles  he  is  the  author  of — 

Woman  and  the  Woman's  Movement.     Putnam's  Monthly 

Magazine,  March,  1853. 
Review  of  the  Works  of  Sir  Wm.  Hamilton.     Putnam's 

Magazine,  Nov.  1853. 
Swedenborg's  Ontology.    North  American  Review,  July,  1867. 
Is  Marriage  Holy.'    Atlantic  Monthly,  March,  1870.     (Reprint 

as  pamphlet,  London,  1870.) 
The  Logic  of   Marriage  and  Murder.      Atlantic  Monthly, 

June,  1870. 
Spiritualism,  Old  and  New.    Atlantic  Monthly,  March,  1872. 
Modern  Diabolism.     Atlantic  Monthly,  August,  1873. 
Personal  Reminiscences  of  Carlyle.    Atlantic  Monthly,  May, 

1881. 

To  these  may  be  added  a  series  of  six  letters  addressed 
to  Mr.  F.  E.  Abbot,  and  published  in  the  "  Index,"  as 
follows  :  — 

Deliverance,  not  Perfection,  the  Aim  of  Religion,  Jan. 
20,  1876. 

The  Reconciliation  of  Man  Individual  with  Man  Uni- 
versal, Feb.  3,  1876. 

Society  versus  Selfhood,  Feb.  17,  1876. 

Spiritual  Creation,  March  23,  1876. 

Knowledge  and  Science  contrasted,  April  13,  1876. 

The  Philosophy  of  the  Heart,  May  18,  1876. 

Also  a  series  of  contributions,  eighteen  in  number,  to 
the  "  New  Church  Independent,"  of  Chicago,  extending 


BIBLIOGRAPHY.  47 1 

from  Jjly,  1879,  to  August,  1881.  Many  of  these  letters 
are  reprinted  verbatim,  forming  chapters  of  the  Essay 
entitled  "  Spiritual  Creation,"  in  the  present  volume. 

Mr.  James  was  also  a  frequent  contributor  to  the 
"  Harbinger  "  and  the  "  Spirit  of  the  Age,"  in  New  York, 
during  the  not  very  long  hfe  of  those  weekly  journals 
of  progress. 

The  "  New  York  Tribune  "  afterwards  printed  a  good 
many  articles  and  letters  from  him  ;  and  later  in  his 
life  he  wTote  an  occasional  book-review  for  the  "Nation," 
the  "  North  American,"  or  the  "  Atlantic."  It  seems  un- 
necessary to  make  reference  to  these  ephemeral  contribu- 
tions in  detail.  Exception  may  perhaps  be  made  for  a 
review  of  Stirling's  "  Secret  of  Hegel,"  in  the  "  North 
American"  for  January,  1866,  and  for  one  of  Bushnell's 
"  Vicarious  Sacrifice,"  in  the  same  review  for  April  of  the 
same  year. 


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